Trump Mocks Anthony Fauci’s Athletic Ability in Characteristically Deranged Rant

Something you probably picked up on over the course of the last year is that Donald Trump did a terrible job responding to COVID-19, such that the outcome might have been the same if he’d literally done nothing at all, which is pretty close to what actually happened. In addition to straight-up lying to the nation about how deadly the virus was, his administration cut doctors out of the government’s response to the public health crisis; lied about the availability of testing; nixed an early plan to send every American a mask; abandoned a national testing strategy because the people dying were Democrats; held super-spreader events like they were going out of style; and came out and admitted last fall that it was doing nothing to stop the spread of the virus. Again, none of these are new revelations. One of the biggest factors that caused Trump to lose the 2020 election was his piss-poor handling of the pandemic. Still, the 45th president is uniquely unable to handle any sort of criticism whatsoever, so naturally, he threw a massive tantrum after a few of his former employees appeared on CNN to reiterate the shitty job he’d done.

On Monday, Trump lashed out at Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, who served as his top coronavirus advisers, after the two criticized the administration in a CNN documentary that aired on Sunday. In a characteristically unhinged statement, Trump called the doctors “two self-promotors,” something he knows just a little bit about; claimed that “if it were up to them we’d currently be locked in our basements as our country suffered through a financial depression”; and mocked Fauci’s athletic ability in an epically deranged run-on sentence that read: “In a fake interview last night on CNN, Dr. Fauci, who said he was an athlete in college but couldn’t throw a baseball even close to home plate, it was a ‘roller,’ tried to take credit for the vaccine, when in fact he said it would take three to five years, and probably longer, to have it approved.” He also called Birx “a proven liar with very little credibility left” and said she was “a terrible medical advisor, which is why I seldom followed her advice.” (In fact, if Birx lost any credibility, it was when she went on TV and suggested Trump was doing a good job handling the crisis.) 

The incredible thing about Trump’s statement, a point no doubt lost on him and the advisers who typed it up and disseminated it, is the fact that in insisting he rarely, if ever, took the doctors’ advice, he made it clear that the 400,000 deaths that occurred by his last full day in office were his fault and his fault alone.

And while he deserves credit for the development of some (but not all!) of the vaccines, Trump conveniently forgot to mention the part about failing to obtain additional doses of the drugs when he had the chance and royally fucking up the rollout. Also it would‘ve probably been more helpful to the country if he hadn’t personally gotten the vaccine in secret, given the proportion of his supporters who’ve indicated they’re going to sit this one out. Per CNN:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday encouraged “all Republican men” to get the COVID-19 vaccine, as new polls indicate many in the group are skeptical of getting the shot. “I can say as a Republican man, as soon as it was my turn, I took the vaccine. I would encourage all Republican men to do that,” said McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, on Monday, when asked what kind of messaging he can push as the GOP leader to help encourage people, specifically Republican men, that the vaccine is safe and they should get it.

In a CNN poll released earlier this month, 92% of Democrats said they had gotten a dose of the vaccine or planned to get one, while just 50% of Republicans said the same. That same poll found that 46% of Republicans said that they won’t try to get a vaccine. Similarly, a PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll conducted this month [found that] 49% of Republican men in the U.S. say they don’t plan to get vaccinated for COVID-19.

Anyway, if you liked the ex-president’s most recent crazed rant, he now has a centralized location for all his musings and other official business. Per Reuters:

Republican former president Donald Trump has launched an official website, 45office.com, a platform for his supporters to stay in touch and to showcase his time in office. The 45office.com website’s home page displays multiple pictures of Trump with various figures, including his wife, Melania, members of the military, and world leaders, which were taken at multiple events during his time as president. “The Office of Donald J. Trump is committed to preserving the magnificent legacy of the Trump Administration, while at the same time advancing the America First agenda,” the message on [the] website’s home page read[s].

The “About” section contains a glowing, 850-word synopsis of his time in office, highlighting what Trump has often cited as his greatest achievements, including energy and border security, strengthening NATO and other international alliances, and his response to the coronavirus pandemic. It [makes] no mention of the scandals, corruption investigations, two impeachments, or the attacks on democratic institutions that framed his presidency.

Earlier this month an adviser to the ex-president announced that Trump would be launching his own social media platform “probably in about two or three months,” having been banned from Twitter and Facebook in January on account of trying to overthrow the U.S. government.

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