It’s so strange to think that if we really do get a primary between Trump and DeSantis in 2024, DeSantis is going to go on offense against Trump for having been *too much* of a COVID hawk.

And Exhibit A in the case he’ll present will be that Trump never fired Anthony Fauci.

And you know what? That really might give MAGA voters some pause. If the price of renominating Donald Trump is having to defend Fauci, how many populists are willing to pay that price?

Fauci did Trump no favors this afternoon by disclaiming responsibility for shutdowns across the country, reminding Fox voters that that was supposed to be a temporary response aimed at flattening the curve during the initial wave. Right, but it didn’t stay temporary in many places, most notably schools in blue states. And while Fauci might not have demanded protracted shutdowns, by relentlessly emphasizing caution and mitigation in his many, many many public appearances, he provided the moral cover for Democratic officials to err on the side of keeping schools and businesses closed.

Fauci on Fox News: “I think we need to make sure that your listeners understand I didn’t shut down anything.” pic.twitter.com/rpUVIx8ZzB

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 23, 2022

It’s true that Fauci began making the case for reopening schools early in the pandemic, starting in June of 2020. But he’s kidding himself and us if he thinks school shutdowns didn’t cause irreparable harm. Full recovery from learning loss will take a long time, assuming kids stick with it. And many won’t: One study estimated that three million students — three million — simply stopped attending class, in person or remotely, during the first months of the pandemic.

Fauci may have been a polite skeptic of closing schools but I don’t recall any hair-on-fire moments in which he demanded that Democrats reopen ASAP before any more kids suffered lasting damage. He had great influence over popular opinion on COVID policy, especially on the left. Did he use that influence with proper urgency?

He also remains a skeptic of studies that claim lockdowns don’t work, although that may be a matter of asking “work at what?”. Work at preventing the virus from spreading altogether? Clearly not. Work at slowing the spread of the virus at moments when cases are surging and hospital capacity is threatened? Maybe. It stands to reason that limiting the ability of people to gather in certain public spaces will limit transmission — temporarily.

Fauci is asked about a report on COVID lockdowns which concluded 'states that locked down fared no better, and sometimes worse, than those states that didn't.'

"I really question those data," Fauci says. pic.twitter.com/cXa9PrmCLU

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) August 23, 2022

Later he got defensive, reminding Neil Cavuto that some of his critics are throwing stones from glass houses. If you spent the pandemic trying to convince people not to get vaccinated, maybe don’t get too high and mighty with Fauci about not having cared enough about the public welfare:

Fauci on Fox: “I think the people who criticize me should talk about their own reluctance to promote vaccination. That’s the point that I would make.” pic.twitter.com/E16I3U0vIc

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 23, 2022

He has many thoughtful critics on the right but so much of the energy in vilifying him came from populists clinging to crankery about miracle cures and secret treatments that the feds supposedly didn’t want Americans to know about. That made it easy for Fauci to deflect from his real errors, inviting people to judge him by his enemies instead:

Fauci: “If somebody says something that scientifically is incorrect and I disagree with them, I’ve become the adversary. If somebody says that hydroxychloroquine works and is the miracle cure and I say it’s not, then I’m the bad guy to some people.” pic.twitter.com/Nz5er5f9ov

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) August 23, 2022

He’s right about that. Just as National Review is right that his major mistakes had nothing to do with populist disinformation:

One of Fauci’s first pieces of advice during the pandemic was to discourage Americans from wearing masks, declaring in a March 8 interview with 60 Minutes, “There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better, and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.” The problem isn’t that Fauci changed his mind as masks became more widely available; it’s that he never really addressed his previous declarations that they were ineffective — declarations that apparently he didn’t believe. Fauci didn’t create the anti-masking sentiment in American life, but his quick reversal fed the suspicion that wearing masks was more about public perceptions than empirical evidence.

Those who were paying close attention noticed that Fauci kept shifting his assessment of the percentage needed to reach herd immunity from the virus. In December 2020, Fauci admitted to the New York Times that he finessed his public statements, based on what he felt the public was ready to hear: “In a telephone interview the next day, Dr. Fauci acknowledged that he had slowly but deliberately been moving the goal posts. He is doing so, he said, partly based on new science, and partly on his gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks.” This did not align with Fauci’s much-celebrated reputation as a straight shooter.

Fauci’s emails suggested he had a symbiotic relationship with adoring reporters. He offered evasive answers about U.S. taxpayer money financing gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. He offered a full-throated defense of gain-of-function research, which looks a little different in the aftermath of a global pandemic that killed millions.

The most grating thing about the Fauci phenomenon was the cult of personality that developed around him on the left and which only contributed to the right’s suspicions about him. In his defense, some of that was inevitable irrespective of anything he did. Democrats style themselves as the party of science and Fauci’s COVID caution fit neatly with their “safety first” risk-aversion; they were destined to leverage his authority in the name of promoting their favored policies by treating him like an icon. But Fauci played into it. How many fawning media profiles did he sit for? How many federal bureaucrats have gotten a photo spread in InStyle, including sitting poolside with sunglasses on, let alone gotten one in the middle of a pandemic?

He should have been the “just the facts” guy on TV. Instead he became a guru of science to half the population and seemed to enjoy the role a bit too much.

I’ll leave you with this clip. Some of his populist adversaries accused him of scheduling his retirement for December in hopes of dodging accountability to the new Republican majority in the House next year, but I don’t follow that logic. Retirement doesn’t give you immunity from subpoenas. If a GOP House committee hauls him in, he has to show. And he will, he says.

Neil Cavuto: "So [your retirement] wasn’t a way to avoid Republican investigations if they take over the House and/or the Senate?"

Dr. Fauci: "Not at all. Not even a little bit. I have nothing to hide."

Cavuto: You'd testify as a private citizen?

Fauci: "Yeah, of course, Neil" pic.twitter.com/5HsfTmyeb4

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) August 23, 2022