Fahrenthold: Lesson from Coronavirus Task Force is tell ‘the truth from the beginning’
Mar 30, 2021, 12:18 PM
White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx speaks during a White House Coronavirus Task Force press briefing in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on November 19, 2020 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
(Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
Dr. Deborah Birx and other members of former President Trump’s Coronavirus Task Force have been going around the country saying, “We could have done better.” But what’s the point of this move?
“It seems to be mostly saving their own reputation because they’re not talking about what’s happening now,” said David Fahrenthold, Washington Post reporter and weekly guest of Seattle’s Morning News. “They’re talking about what happened at the beginning of the pandemic. … Dr. Birx said we could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives if Donald Trump listened to what we’ve been saying, you know, if our leaders had listened to science in the first months of the pandemic, then we could have saved all these lives.”
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It seems there could be a number of former Trump officials who come out in the days and weeks ahead to explain or even apologize for their past behaviors, KIRO Radio’s Dave Ross pointed out, though Fahrenthold said Dr. Birx may be the most prominent example.
“She, I think, will say that she was trying to stay in government and not be fired,” Fahrenthold said. “But you remember the many statements she made at the beginning of the pandemic, like ‘Donald Trump is such an incredible synthesizer of information, he’s grasped things so much faster than a regular person, we’re so lucky to have him in charge,’ that sort of thing.”
The lesson Fahrenthold says he’d take from all this is that it’s better to be a truth teller, even at the risk of losing your job.
“Those folks who perpetuated falsehoods or who said that Donald Trump was doing great when he wasn’t, and reassured people about things they shouldn’t have been reassured about, this is about their conscience, I guess, and how they feel about managing their own reputation,” he said. “But it seems like Dr. Fauci told the truth from the beginning, got exiled for a while, but probably had an effect on public knowledge even then, and has now kept his reputation and his job.”
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