[guest post by Dana]

During his Coronavirus Task Force briefing yesterday, President Trump didn’t just promote hydroxychloroquine, he encouraged people to take it to treat coronavirus. This after Dr. Hahn (FDA Commissioner) cautioned about its use:

DR. HAHN:

I’m going to speak about hydroxychloroquine and the efforts around that…Last week as the president said, we issued an emergency use authorization to allow the donated hydroxychloroquine to come into the country and enter the general circulation. We are prioritizing this drug to come in for clinical trials, also to general use for physicians because, as you know, physicians, based upon their interaction with the patients, their assessment of the risks and benefits, can write a prescription for hydroxychloroquine if they think it’s appropriate for that patient. Being a physician, we do this all the time, and that assessment needs to be done between a patient and a doctor. And then the third portion is we wanted to make sure that these drugs were in the supply chain so that people who have them or need them for the other indications, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, had them available. So that was the purpose of the emergency use authorization.

PRESIDENT TRUMP (later in the briefing):

One of the reasons that I keep talking about hydroxychloroquine is that the question that nobody ever asks, and the question that I most hate the answer to is what happens if you do have a ventilator? What are your chances? I just hope that hydroxychloroquine wins. Coupled with perhaps the Z pack, as we call it, dependent totally on your doctors, and the doctors there.

Because you know the answer to that question. If you do have the ventilator, you know the answer to that question. I hate giving the answer, so I don’t want to get them there. I don’t want to get them there. There’s a possibility, a possibility, and I say it. What do you have to lose? I’ll say it again. What do you have to lose? Take it. I really think they should take it, but it’s their choice, and it’s their doctor’s choice or the doctors in the hospital. But hydroxychloroquine. Try it, if you’d like.

…

But I’ve seen some results now. It’s early, I guess. It’s early, and they should look at the lupus thing. I don’t know what it says, but there’s a rumor out there that, because it takes care of lupus very effectively as I understand it. It’s a drug that’s used for lupus.

So there’s a study out there that says people that have lupus haven’t been catching this virus. No. Maybe it’s true. Maybe it’s not. Why don’t you investigate that?

And there’s also other studies with the malaria that the malaria countries have very little people that take this drug for malaria, which is very effective for malaria, that those countries have very little of this virus. I don’t know. You’re going to check it out. But I think people should … If it were me, in fact, I might do it anyway. I may take it. Okay. I may take it, and I’ll have to ask my doctors about that, but I may take it.

And there was more from Dr. Trump:

During the briefing, as Dr. Fauci and other advisers looked on, the president talked about the potential of other medicines, too. He mentioned azithromycin, often referred to as a Z-Pak, which has been given to some patients along with hydroxychloroquine.

“The other thing, if you have a heart condition, I understand, probably you stay away from the Z-Pak. But that’s an antibiotic. It can clean out the lung. The lungs are a point of attack for this horrible virus.”

The President of the United States is putting any number of Americans at potential risk, not only by touting the drug, but by casually advising them to try it, like it was a Tic-Tac. It is apparent that the President has become increasingly reckless about what he says. More so than he was in March, when he said of the drug: “It’s been around for a long time, so we know that if things don’t go as planned it’s not going to kill anybody.” And it doesn’t lessen the potential damage by throwing in the caveat, “it’s their doctor’s choice or the doctors in the hospital.” I’ve said it a million times: Trump holds the most powerful position in the world, and his words carry that much more weight because of it. He plays fast and loose with the facts, contradicts the medical experts standing next to him, and has the temerity to disagree with these same experts after they clean up his verbal messes. This is reckless behavior, and because of his directive, people might fall ill, or even die. And if they do, because they stupidly followed his advice, then Trump would bear some level of moral responsibility. These are dangerous times, and when the chief executive cavalierly tells Americans to take a drug and has no idea how it might affect them, he potentially endangers them. And while I don’t believe that the vast majority of Americans would take medical advice from Trump, there is a loyal base of true believers who hang on his every word. So much so, in fact, that they put him into office.

Meanwhile, the President might want to read this:

[A] study just published in a French medical journal provides new evidence that hydroxychloroquine does not appear to help the immune system clear the coronavirus from the body. The study comes on the heels of two others – one in France and one in China – that reported some benefits in the combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin for COVID-19 patients who didn’t have severe symptoms of the virus.

I am a medicinal chemist who has specialized in discovery and development of antiviral drugs for the past 30 years, and I have been actively working on coronaviruses for the past seven. I am among a number of researchers who are concerned that this drug has been given too much of a high priority before there is enough evidence to show it is indeed effective.

There are already other clinical studies that showed it is not effective against COVID-19 as well as several other viruses. And, more importantly, it can have dangerous side effects, as well as giving people false hope. The latter has led to widespread shortages of hydroxychloroquine for patients who need it to treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, the indications for which it was originally approved…Thus, despite the recent approval of this drug for use against COVID-19, questions remain as to the efficacy of this treatment. As Molina and colleagues note: “Ongoing randomized clinical trials with hydroxychloroquine should provide a definitive answer regarding the alleged efficacy of this combination and will assess its safety.”

You can watch the press conference from yesterday here.

–Dana

[guest post by Dana]

Last week I wrote about Trump’s new political strategy of leaning into the pandemic. However, taking the virus seriously was apparently little more than a short-lived experiment, given the president’s retweet of a video in which a doctor claims that the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine is the cure for the coronavirus. The video was later deleted by Twitter:

Twitter has pulled a video of doctors making false claims about the novel coronavirus after it was shared by President Trump. Late Monday night, the president stumbled across the viral video that showed fringe doctors touting the controversial anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as “a cure for COVID” and doubting the effectiveness of wearing masks. The claims made in the video directly contradicted the advice of Trump’s own public-health experts—but, despite that, he slammed the retweet button. Now, Trump’s page shows a disclaimer where the retweet once was, reading: “This Tweet is no longer available.” A Twitter spokesperson told CNN: “We’re taking action in line with our COVID misinfo policy.” Facebook and YouTube have also confirmed they removed the misleading video. Despite what Trump appears to believe, clinical trials have found that hydroxycholroquine has shown no real benefit in treating coronavirus patients, and has potentially deadly side effects.

Just this past weekend, Trump expressed some regret over his tweets, especially his retweets. I’m guessing hoping that he might be experiencing some of that regret this morning.

These are reportedly some of the views held by a Houston doctor who was part of the controversial viral video that Trump retweeted:

Immanuel, a pediatrician and a religious minister, has a history of making bizarre claims about medical topics and other issues. She has often claimed that gynecological problems like cysts and endometriosis are in fact caused by people having sex in their dreams with demons and witches.

She alleges alien DNA is currently used in medical treatments, and that scientists are cooking up a vaccine to prevent people from being religious. And, despite appearing in Washington, D.C. to lobby Congress on Monday, she has said that the government is run in part not by humans but by “reptilians” and other aliens.

More on Trump’s retweets concerning the coronavirus:

Trump also retweeted tweets defending the use of the drug hydroxychloroquine, including one that accused Dr. Anthony Fauci, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, of misleading the public by dismissing the drug.

“I have not been misleading the public under any circumstances,” Fauci responded on ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Tuesday morning when asked for his reaction to Trump’s retweets.

Fauci reiterated that the “overwhelming prevailing clinical trials” that have looked at the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine have indicated that it’s “not effective” in treating the coronavirus.

In spite of plummeting poll numbers, surveys showing that the majority of Americans disapprove of the way he is handling the pandemic, and the concerted efforts of his advisers, handlers, and his own Coronavirus Task Force, the self-consumed toddler-in-chief is simply unable to grasp the severity of the pandemic and the state of the nation. In other words, Trump is just being Trump.

UPDATE: President Trump addressed questions about Dr. Immanuel (in the video) at today’s press conference:

Pres. Trump abruptly ended his coronavirus briefing following a question by CNN’s @kaitlancollins. The President defended tweets he shared that supported the use of hydroxychloroquine and called a doctor who was spreading conspiracy theories on Covid-19 “very impressive.” pic.twitter.com/NAI697Jjh3

— CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) July 28, 2020

2ND UPDATE: Just OMG:

The woman whose “important voice” he was amplifying the other day was demanding that Dr. Fauci, Chris Cuomo and the rest of us at CNN turn over our urine to her so she could test it for hydroxychloroquine which she insists we are all secretly taking. Totally normal. https://t.co/k1ajOkK9hC

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) July 28, 2020

–Dana

[guest post by Dana]

With the White House Coronavirus Task Force briefings abruptly stopping in April, President Trump made the decision to resume them this week. One can safely assume that he made the decision because of his sagging poll numbers and he now understands that Americans disapprove of the way he has handled the pandemic thus far:

White House adviser Kellyanne Conway said Friday President Donald Trump should resume his coronavirus press briefings, as polls show growing American disapproval of the president’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Conway said her opinion was different from that of other White House staff but told “Fox and Friends” Trump’s approval ratings were “much higher when he was out there briefing everybody on a day-by-day basis, just giving people the information.”

“I think the president should be doing that,” she said.

Noticeably absent from the pandemic updates, however, are any health care experts. Instead, infectious disease specialist Dr. Trump explained why he is flying solo at the briefings:

President Trump said Wednesday that the reason health experts like Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci no longer attend his coronavirus press briefings is because they brief him on “everything they know as of this point in time” and he passes the information on to the public.

Before they were canceled in April, Trump’s daily briefings grew infamous for being rife with misinformation, which his health experts would be forced to carefully contradict.

Here is part of the president’s exchange with a reporter:

REPORTER: “I don’t think we really got an explanation yesterday on why the health experts are no longer joining you these briefings. Can you explain why?”

TRUMP: “Because they are briefing me. I am meeting with them. I just spoke to Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx is right outside. And they are giving me everything they know as of this point in time and I’m giving the information to you and I think it’s probably a very concise way of doing it. It seems to be working out very well. And they are very much involved, the relationships they are all very good.”

Hours before Trump’s first coronavirus briefing, Dr. Fauci was still unclear on whether he was going to be asked to participate:

Are you going to be at the press briefing this afternoon?

To be honest with you, I don’t know. They haven’t really said who’s going to be there. I would assume, but I don’t know as a fact if I am going to be there.

Have you spoken with the White House about it?

No. But that’s not unlike them all of a sudden, middle of the day, to say, “Be down there at five o’clock.” So I’m not too — what’s the right word? — surprised that I haven’t heard anything yet.

Interesting. That means you weren’t involved in the discussions about relaunching them.

No.

Do you think they’re a good idea?

You know, it depends on how it goes. If they stick to public health and don’t get diverted into other types of discussions, I think it could be productive.

Disagreeing with Trump’s description of him as an “alarmist” during an interview with Chris Wallace last weekend, Fauci instead characterized himself as a “realist”. With that, after having repeatedly cautioned Americans about the “fundamentals” (wearing a mask, social distancing, and closing the bars, which he claims are the hot spots), Fauci recognized the tricky position he is in if he offers a professional opinion that differs from the president:

But Americans have already been told this, right? And we still don’t do those things. If you were an executive for the day, what lever would you pull?

But Jennifer, would you want me to say something that’s directly contrary to what the president is doing? That’s not helpful. Then all of a sudden you don’t hear from me for a while…I’ve just been doing this for so long, and I’m trying to do my best to get the message across without being overtly at odds…

Meanwhile, here is Trump praising Dr. Birx, who was notably absent from his coronavirus briefing:

Trump: She can take a scarf and do fifteen things with it pic.twitter.com/O1vtmtcFL0

— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) July 23, 2020

As a reminder, this is the same Dr. Trump who suggested that people take hydroxychloroquine, echoed claims that everyone is lying about Covid, pushed a drug that Fauci said there was no evidence that it worked on coronavirus, and even mused about zapping patients with light or injecting disinfectant into the lungs as a potential cure for the coronavirus, and so forth. If you are the President of the United States, you have at your disposal an immense stable of health care experts from which to select to directly convey the latest data and relevant information to the American people. Trump is not that individual. Nor should he try to simply “relay” what he’s been told because we all know how reliable he is to relay information with any level of accuracy. This is just ridiculous. This is just another political ploy to make it “appear” as if this is about public health when we know it’s about goosing his slumping poll numbers. Americans have been clear that they want to know what is happening on the Covid front, and want to have current information readily provided to them by health care experts. This is but a way for Trump to get in front of the cameras, and gain some lost ground in the runup to the election.

We are in a pandemic. America deserves better than this.

–Dana

[guest post by Dana]

The Wall Street Journal reports that Dr. Anthony Fauci has issued a warning about using hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid-19:

Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious-disease expert, said hydroxychloroquine isn’t an effective treatment for Covid-19 and urged caution as Republicans and Democrats plan their conventions for later this summer.

Dr. Fauci’s comments Wednesday about hydroxychloroquine echo the findings of recent studies and countered President Trump’s frequent efforts to tout the antimalarial drug as a promising treatment for Covid-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

“I’m not so sure it should be banned, but clearly the scientific data is really quite evident now about the lack of efficacy for it,” Dr. Fauci said during a CNN interview, when asked whether the U.S. should ban the drug for treating Covid-19, as France recently did.

[Ed. Well, Fauci had a good run…]

Fauci also said that patients with pre-existing heart conditions or other health issues might experience “adverse effects” from using the drug to treat Covid-19.

Here are the numbers:

In the absence of approved treatments, doctors and hospitals began using hydroxychloroquine and a similar drug, chloroquine, in Covid-19 patients earlier this year, after several small studies outside the U.S. provided signs the drugs may help treat symptoms. In recent weeks, several observational studies have shown they may not provide benefit to patients and could even be harmful.

On Friday, researchers analyzing data of about 96,000 hospitalized patients reported that the drugs didn’t help patients fight Covid-19, while raising the risk for heart problems and death. That study, funded by Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, found that between 16.4% and 23.8% of the approximate 15,000 patients treated with the antimalarials—either alone or in combination with an antibiotic—died, depending on the regimen. In comparison, a little more than 9% of hospitalized patients who didn’t get an antimalarial died.

Fauci also cautioned the two major political parties about holding in-person conventions later this summer:

Dr. Fauci said officials should “reserve judgment” on proceeding until they have a better handle on whether numbers of new cases and hospitalizations are significantly decreasing.

Dr. Fauci said he would have “significant reservations” about proceeding with the conventions if cases aren’t trending down in the states.

He also said a second wave of infections later this year can be prevented if states follow government guidelines aimed at mitigating the spread of the virus. “We don’t have to accept that as an inevitability,” he said, adding later, “It could happen, but it’s not inevitable.”

Fauci predicted that a vaccine could be ready by the end of the year:

He expressed confidence that a vaccine could be deployed by the end of this year, but cautioned that the vaccine development process could face “land mines and hiccups.”

Interestingly, while a vaccine might be ready by the end of the year, Americans don’t necessarily seem ready ready to get one:

A new poll found only 49% of Americans say they would get a COVID-19 vaccine should an effective one be discovered. The poll from The Associated Press found 31% of Americans aren’t sure if they’d get the vaccine, and another 20% say they’d definitely refuse.

Forty-two percent of people who don’t want a vaccine say they’re concerned about catching COVID-19 from it.

Note: …most of the leading vaccine candidates don’t contain the coronavirus itself, meaning there’s no chance people could get infected from those shots.

–Dana

[guest post by Dana]

In spite of warnings by Dr. Fauci, and in spite of *FDA safety warnings issued in April, President Trump announced today that he has been taking hydroxychloroquine as a preventative medicine against the coronavirus. Apparently, the potential side effects on a 73-year old, overweight man with high blood pressure, and lack of actual evidence that it is effective as a preventative medicine did not matter in the end:

President Trump said Monday that he has been taking hydroxychloroquine, an antimalarial drug whose effectiveness against the coronavirus is unproven, for about a week and a half as a preventive measure, saying he had no symptoms of Covid-19.

“All I can tell you is, so far I seem to be OK,” he said, explaining that he takes a daily pill.

The president also said that, along with the daily dose of hydroxychloroquine, he has been taking a a daily dose of zinc and an initial dose of the antibiotic azithromycin. Studies have linked the combination of these drugs to an increase of cardiac arrests.

Dr. David Boulware of the University of Minnesota, who is overseeing a national trial to determine whether hydroxychloroquine can prevent infections, cautioned:

There are no data that pre-exposure prophylaxis is effective to prevent coronavirus. It may be. It may not be. We do not know. The only way I would recommend taking hydroxychloroquine is within a clinical trial.

Other doctors also cautioned against taking it:

“I think it’s a very bad idea to be taking hydroxychloroquine as a preventive medication,” said Dr. Eric Topol, a cardiologist and the director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute in La Jolla, Calif. “There are no data to support that, there’s no evidence, and in fact there is no compelling evidence to support its use at all at this point.”

…

Dr. David Maron, a cardiologist and the chief of the Stanford Prevention Research Center, said in an interview that in his opinion “the risk-benefit ratio doesn’t make sense.”

Further:

Dr. Steven E. Nissen, the chief academic officer of the The Miller Family Heart, Vascular & Thoracic Institute at the Cleveland Clinic, said hydroxychloroquine was “not an innocent therapy,” adding that he had treated a number of patients who developed a life-threatening arrhythmia, which the drug can cause.

“This disorder can be lethal,” Dr. Nissen said. “My concern would be that the public not hear comments about the use of hydroxychloroquine and believe that taking this drug to prevent Covid-19 infection is without hazards. In fact, there are serious hazards.”

Clearly, all medical practitioners are not on the same page with regard to using hydroxychloroquine as a preventative medication for the coronavirus:

Asked if the White House doctor recommended he begin taking hydroxychloroquine, Trump demurred.

“I asked him what do you think, he said, ‘Well if you’d like it,’ ” the President told reporters.

The President’s physician, Navy Cmdr. Sean Conley, alluded in a memo released Monday night to Trump’s personal valet testing positive two weeks ago for coronavirus. While Conley didn’t say directly that Trump started taking hydroxychloroquine in response to the valet testing positive, the timing mentioned by Trump and the positive test match up.

“After numerous discussions, he and I had regarding the evidence for and against the use of hydroxychloroquine, we concluded the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks,” Conley wrote, adding that Trump has taken multiple tests for coronavirus — all negative — and remains symptom free.

…

“I’m not going to get hurt by it,” Mr. Trump said, claiming he was making the revelation in order to be transparent with Americans. “It has been around for 40 years for malaria, for lupus, for other things. I take it. Front-line workers take it. A lot of doctors take it. I take it.”

And although the released memo reveals that the doctor did discuss the use of hydroxychloroquine by the president, it did not confirm that he was indeed taking it. However, there is this tweet from the NYT:

POTUS spoxwoman @Alyssafarah confirms yes POTUS was prescribed and yes POTUS has been taking hydorxychloroquine.

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) May 19, 2020

The president’s decision to take the drug comes as no surprise, given his zealous promotion of it back in early April. He takes a drug that doctors warn against taking as a preventative medicine. He refuses to wear a mask in public, as recommended by medical experts. But I do wonder about the level of pressure Trump put on Conley to prescribe him the drug. Given the lack of evidence supporting its effectiveness as a preventative medication against the coronavirus, as well as the potential side effects on an older person who is not in the best physical shape, and in this case, just happens to be the President of the United States, I would have guessed that the White House physician would have not simply said no to any such request, but would have emphatically said Absolutely Not!.

Anyway, here are some brief clips of Trump explaining why he decided to take the drug:

"I want the people of this nation to feel good. I don't want them being sick" — Trump claims the White House doctor signed off on him taking hydroxychloroquine, which he says he was inspired to start taking because of letters he received pic.twitter.com/R0oKn9XMpP

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 18, 2020

As The Post notes, today was a “triple whammy” of good news, so why would Trump want to detract from that by making a controversial announcement? I don’t really know why, but I do know that know one steps on his own good press more effectively than Trump himself.

*The FDA did authorize emergency use of hydroxychloroquine against the coronavirus in March, even though there was little evidence that it could work.

–Dana

[guest post by Dana]

In spite of Trump’s repeated promotion for the use of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to combat coronavirus, members of the COVID-19 Treatment Panel have recommended against use of the combination of drugs:

A panel of experts convened by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases recommends against doctors using a combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin for the treatment of COVID-19 patients because of potential toxicities.

“The combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin was associated with QTc prolongation in patients with COVID-19,” the panel said.

QTc prolongation increases the risk of sudden cardiac death.

The panel also addressed usage of the two drugs by themselves:

As for using the use of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine alone, the panel said there was “insufficient clinical data to recommend either for or against.” It reached the same conclusion about the drug remdesivir.

The panel of medical experts, with clinical experience and expertise in patient management, clinical science, and/or development of treatment guidelines, will not make recommendations about a drug’s use if strong scientific evidence is lacking to make a firm conclusion one way or the other:

“It’s all based on the data,” said panel member Dr. Susan Swindells, a professor in the department of internal medicine at the University of Nebraska College of Medine. “We just plowed through everything that was, and apart from supportive care, there wasn’t anything that was working terribly well.”

The panel also concluded that there was insufficient evidence to recommend any kind of treatment either to prevent infection with the coronavirus or to prevent the progression of symptoms in those who are already infectious. That recommendation could change based on clinical trials presently underway.

–Dana

UPDATE BY PATTERICO:

i'm still feeling residual stranger danger from this pic.twitter.com/qjlOLlFk2U

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 5, 2020

[guest post by Dana]

So, in the midst of a raging pandemic, the government’s top infectious disease specialist, who has labored tirelessly to help stem the spread of Covid-19, and worked equally as hard, I’m guessing, to resist publicly mocking a president for his outlandish comments and unqualified criticisms of a medical professional who has spent decades at his post, now finds himself a target of the White House because his increasing concerns about a disease running amok is distracting Americans from the president’s re-election strategy:

Fauci’s advice has often run contrary to President Trump’s views, and the attacks on Fauci have begun to look like a traditional negative political campaign against an opponent. Yet this time, the opponent is a public health expert and career civil servant working within the administration.

Dan Scavino, deputy chief of staff for communications, shared a cartoon on his Facebook page late Sunday that depicted Fauci as a faucet flushing the U.S. economy down the drain with overzealous health guidance to slow the spread of the pandemic.

The cartoon, which shows Fauci declaring schools should remain closed and calling for “indefinite lockdowns,” did not accurately portray what Fauci has advised in public.

Adm. Brett Giroir, the administration’s testing czar offered this opinion of Fauci:

“I respect Dr. Fauci a lot, but Dr. Fauci is not 100 percent right and he also doesn’t necessarily, and he admits that, have the whole national interest in mind,” Giroir told “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “He looks at it from a very narrow public health point of view.”

Of course neither Fauci nor Giroir nor any health care professional is right 100 percent of the time. None of them walk on water, but giving Fauci the benefit of the doubt for having the nation’s best interest at heart isn’t difficult. Understanding that experts can be wrong at times should be a given. But seeing health experts change course when new data demands actually signals that they are willing to be corrected and are willing to adapt their practice as new information is provided.

As posted yesterday, infection rates are spiking in a number of states, with some governors re-introducing soft lockdowns because of increased transmission. Meanwhile, Trump, who is desperate to get the economy humming so that an economic rebound happens before November’s election, continues to downplay virus concerns. There is no question that Americans need to work. There is no question that businesses need to be up and running. There is no question that there is an increased risk of transmission when people congregate in close proximity to one other. And there is no question that there is an even greater risk of transmission when those people congregating in close proximity to one other do not observe social distancing measures, including wearing a mask. All of these things can be true at the same time. It’s not an either-or proposition. The question, for the thousandth time, is how best to balance public health and the economy. Clearly Trump’s strategy has been to downplay any risk, blame increased testing for increased numbers, suggest that the disease will just “disappear,” and as recently as last weekend, echo claims that everyone is lying:

Because government health care experts found themselves put in an awkward position by Trump’s careless retweet, Giroir was compelled to publicly deny that he or his colleagues lie to the public .

Fauci commented about his lack of communication with the president these days:

Fauci, who has not appeared at recent White House task force briefings and has been largely absent from television, told the Financial Times last week that he last saw Trump in person at the White House on June 2 and hadn’t briefed him in at least two months.

He blamed the fact that he has refused to toe the administration’s line for its refusal to approve many of his media requests.

“I have a reputation, as you probably have figured out, of speaking the truth at all times and not sugar-coating things. And that may be one of the reasons why I haven’t been on television very much lately,” Fauci said.

And interestingly:

Fauci’s public contradictions of Trump have been viewed by the president as a personal affront and have caused some in the West Wing to sour on the doctor, officials say. Some say that, while he is critical of the president in media interviews, he is largely deferential behind closed doors. And they complain about those outside the administration, including some in the media, who have elevated Fauci at the expense of other officials.

The White House, however, views things a bit differently:

“I have a very good relationship with Dr. Fauci,” Trump told reporters Monday, calling him “a very nice person.” But the president added, “I don’t always agree with him.”

That supportive message was not echoed by Peter Navarro, a top White House trade adviser who has been working on the coronavirus effort.

In an email, Navarro continued to criticize Fauci to The Associated Press on Monday, saying the doctor has “a good bedside manner with the public but he has been wrong about everything I have ever interacted with him on.” That includes, he said, downplaying the early risk of the virus and expressing skepticism over the use of hydroxychloroquine, which Navarro has aggressively championed despite contradictory evidence on its efficacy and safety.

And now, unsurprisingly, just as fast as you can say “bad public relations,” Fauci is back at the White House:

A day after President Trump’s press office tried to undermine the reputation of the nation’s top infectious disease expert with an anonymously attributed list of what it said were his misjudgments in the early days of the coronavirus, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci returned to the White House on Monday.

…

Dr. Fauci — who has not had direct contact with the president in more than five weeks even as the number of Americans with Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, has risen sharply in the Southwest — slipped back into the West Wing to meet with Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, while his allies denounced what they called a meanspirited and misguided effort by the White House to smear him.

White House officials declined to comment on what was discussed in the conversation between Mr. Meadows, who has long expressed skepticism about the conclusions of the nation’s public health experts, and Dr. Fauci, though one official called it a good conversation and said they continued to have a positive relationship.

Note: The cartoon that Scavino shared on Facebook was drawn by none other than Ben Garrison, whose anti-Semitic cartoon got him barred from the White House in 2019.

–Dana

[guest post by Dana]

Here are a few news items that caught my eye. Please feel free to post any other news items that you think might interest readers.

First news item

NYT opinion editor James Bennet says paper solicited op-ed from Tom Cotton because of his tweets:

When asked about the senator’s claim that the Times approached him to write the op-ed, Bennet admitted that the opinion page had seen Cotton’s tweets on the subject and “we did ask if he could stand up that argument. I’m not sure we suggested that topic to him but we did invite the piece.”

Bennet didn’t read the op-ed before publication:

When asked why he did not personally read Cotton’s column before publishing it, Bennet said it was “another part of the process that broke down.” He added, “I should have been involved in signing off on the piece… I should have read it and signed off.”

Second news item

Justifying one, not the other: George Floyd protests called for social distancing, protests to reopen economy did not:

…some commentators, inside and outside of public health, are questioning the wisdom of these anti-racist protests, concerned they will increase the spread of COVID-19 and worsen existing racial, ethnic and economic inequities in COVID-19 deaths. Some even compare these risks to those posed by the anti-lockdown protests against COVID-19 regulations.

As public health professionals with expertise in infectious disease epidemiology, social epidemiology and public health and clinical practice, we categorically reject these false equivalencies.

…

Protesters are in the streets demonstrating against police brutality and white supremacy not because they are indifferent to the risk of COVID-19. They are doing what they can to protect themselves and their communities precisely because the institutions that are supposed to protect and serve them have been killing black people in this country far longer than the coronavirus has.

Third news item

Reporting from protest in Utah:

Just left the Salt Lake Cit protest. That was not about George Floyd, and it sure had nothing to do with racial equality, or justice. pic.twitter.com/voAlP5sxdU

— Kamaal S. Ahmad (@CoachKAhmad) May 31, 2020

Fourth news item

GOP convention woes:

…Now, after a high-stakes and public feud with Democratic officials in a state he won four years ago, Mr. Trump and the Republican National Committee are moving to largely shift convention proceedings, including the president’s acceptance speech on the final night, out of Charlotte. After a call with the R.N.C., state chairmen officially told delegates that they should hold off on purchasing airline tickets to Charlotte for the late-August event.

How the convention unraveled two years after Charlotte was selected is the story of an uneasy partnership between Republican officials and mostly Democratic leaders in North Carolina; a president who coveted a coronation and delivered an unyielding imperative to the state’s governor; and the extraordinary disruption from a global pandemic that transformed public life in the country. Once it became clear that health concerns over the coronavirus threatened the possibility of a full-throated celebration for the president, the fragile alliance buckled under the weight of partisan acrimony.

Fifth news item

Barr begs to differ, says he didn’t give order to clear protesters:

Attorney General William Barr says law enforcement officers were already moving to push back protesters from a park in front of the White House when he arrived there Monday evening, and he says he did not give a command to disperse the crowd, though he supported the decision.

…

Barr insisted there was no connection between the heavy-handed crackdown on the protesters and Trump’s walk soon after to St. John’s Church. The attorney general said he had learned in the afternoon that Trump wanted to go outside, and said that when he went to the White House in the evening, he learned of the president’s intended destination.

Sixth news item

Door closing on hydroxychloroquine as Covid-19 treatment?:

major clinical trial showed the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine had no benefit for patients hospitalized with Covid-19, likely closing the door to the use of the highly publicized medicine in the sickest patients — a use for which it was widely prescribed as the pandemic hit the U.S.

The results come from a study called RECOVERY, funded by the U.K. government, that sought to randomly assign large numbers of patients to multiple potential treatments in the country’s National Health Service. The goal was to rapidly get answers as to what worked and what didn’t.

“Today’s preliminary results from the RECOVERY trial are quite clear – hydroxychloroquine does not reduce the risk of death among hospitalized patients with this new disease,” University of Oxford epidemiologist Martin Landray, one of the study’s leaders, said in a statement. “This result should change medical practice worldwide and demonstrates the importance of large, randomized trials to inform decisions about both the efficacy and the safety of treatments.”

Seventh news item

Commander of the Pacific Air Forces tells us what he’s thinking about. Gen. CQ Brown, Jr. is expected to be confirmed as the next chief of staff of the Air Force. He will be the first black service chief in U.S. history:

"As the Commander of Pacific Air Forces, a senior leader in our Air Force, and an African-American, many of you may be wondering what I’m thinking about the current events surrounding the tragic death of George Floyd. Here’s what I’m thinking about…" – Gen. CQ Brown, Jr. pic.twitter.com/I2sf1067L6

— PACAF (@PACAF) June 5, 2020

Have a good weekend.

–Dana