The Daily Populous Thursday June 20th, 2024 morning edition
Authored by salon.com and submitted by devlinadl

While speaking with MSNBC host Ari Melber on Tuesday, former White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci provided more insight into what it was like working under Donald Trump during the early days of the COVID- 19 pandemic, notably that the former president believed “it was going to disappear like magic.”

“[He thought] it's just going to go away because he so desperately wanted it to disappear the way flu disappears as you enter the end of the winter and the beginning of the spring,” Fauci said. “And that’s when I had to publicly get up, which was very uncomfortable for me. I was not happy about criticizing the president or disagreeing with the president. I said, ‘No, it’s not going to disappear like magic at all.’ And when that became clear, that’s when we started talking about hydroxychloroquine, which also was something that had no basis in science.”

According to Fauci, Trump got the idea that COVID could be treated with hydroxychloroquine — an off-patent antimalarial used for autoimmune diseases — from Fox News’ Laura Ingraham. This was despite warnings to the contrary from global health officials; eventually, according to Mediaite, the drug was linked to nearly 17,000 deaths across six countries during the pandemic.

“But I had to continue to tell the truth,” Fauci told Melbar. “And he said, ‘Why do you keep doing this to me?’ Because it’s the truth. I’m telling the American public the facts. Hydroxychloroquine doesn’t work.”

polinkydinky on June 19th, 2024 at 15:10 UTC »

> According to Fauci, Trump got the idea that COVID could be treated with hydroxychloroquine — an off-patent antimalarial used for autoimmune diseases — from Fox News’ Laura Ingraham. This was despite warnings to the contrary from global health officials; eventually, according to Mediaite, the drug was linked to nearly 17,000 deaths across six countries during the pandemic.

JFC.

17,000 deaths from one person whispering shit into an idiot’s ear.

Oxirane on June 19th, 2024 at 15:04 UTC »

I'm reminded of a diagram one of my professors showed us in an early computer science class about how most people think of computers. User clicks some buttons, types some stuff in, magic happens, they get what they want.

There was an arrow pointing to magic happens with the label "Your job here".

Government is the same way, it needs to address issues most of us just don't bother thinking about the solutions to in our day-to-day lives. Swine Flu kind of just tapered off and fizzled out, so of course Trump expected Covid to also.

I guess he didn't realize that the Obama Admin was taking action to avoid Swine Flu being a bigger thing, and that his job as president was to oversee and coordinate that magic dissappearing when another pandemic hit.

KennyDROmega on June 19th, 2024 at 14:39 UTC »

“And [Trump] said, ‘Why do you keep doing this to me?’"

I think this here says everything.

If something bad is happening, Trump's attitude isn't "how can I fix this?", it's "why is everyone being so mean to me? It isn't fair!"

If your response to a crisis is to flop on the floor and throw a tantrum, you are not a leader.