Vice President Pence defends Fauci as White House sends mixed messages on health expert

Maureen Groppe
July 15, 2020


Vice President Mike Pence on Wednesday defended Dr. Anthony Fauci in public comments made soon after he tweeted out a photo of the two of them at the White House.

"Dr. Fauci is a valued member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force," Pence said on a campaign call with reporters when asked about recent attacks on Fauci by others in the administration. "We just completed our latest meeting today and we couldn’t be more grateful for his steady counsel."

The photo he tweeted showed Fauci sitting at Pence's right hand during the meeting.

Pence's comments came a day after White House trade adviser Peter Navarro criticized Fauci in an opinion piece for USA TODAY that included remarks he'd made earlier in the week.

White House director of strategic communications Alyssa Farah tweeted Wednesday that Navarro's op-ed was not approved by the White House and was "the opinion of Peter alone."

•••••

But Dan Scavino, the White House director of social media, previously posted a cartoon on Facebook portraying Fauci as a faucet, flushing the U.S. economy down the drain.

"Sorry, Dr. Faucet!" he posted. "At least you know if I’m going to disagree with a colleague, such as yourself, it’s done publicly – and not cowardly, behind journalists with leaks."

And in an interview last Thursday with Fox News' Sean Hannity, Trump said Fauci had "made a lot of mistakes" but called him a "nice man."

•••••

The mixed messages from the White House came as two polls released Wednesday show the public gives Fauci much higher marks than Trump for the administration's handling of the coronavirus response.

More than six in 10 American voters surveyed by Morning Consult said Fauci's work on the pandemic has been "excellent" or "good" while only 36% said the same of Trump.

Similarly, about two-thirds of voters surveyed by Quinnipiac University Poll said they don't trust the information Trump is providing about the coronavirus. Nearly two-thirds said they do trust Fauci.

•••••