Last Friday, Lou Dobbs was unable to host his own show because he had entered self-quarantine after someone on his staff had tested positive for COVID-19. On Monday night, he called in to talk to fill-in host David Asman and had nothing but good things to say about how President Trump has been handling the crisis.
During their conversation, Asman brought up what he described as the media’s “repeated attempt to drive a wedge between Anthony Fauci—who everybody agrees is a brilliant man, is doing extraordinarily heroic work in dealing with the virus—to drive a wedge between him and the president.” He said it has been “wonderful to see those attempts fall flat, when Dr. Fauci comes up and says that’s absolutely not true.”
“Yes. It’s absolutely not true,” Dobbs replied.
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In a series of interviews over the weekend, Dr. Fauci did his best to stay diplomatic when asked how he can stand by as Trump pushes unfounded theories during press briefings. “I don’t want to embarrass him,” Fauci told The New York Times’ Maureen Dowd. “I don’t want to act like a tough guy, like I stood up to the president. I just want to get the facts out.”
“I can’t jump in front of the microphone and push him down,” he added in an interview with Science magazine. Asked if he has been criticized by anyone in the administration for his visible reaction when Trump referred to the “deep State Department,” Fauci answered, “No comment.”
“The president has been exactly right about those two drugs—hydroxychloroquine—it’s just amazing,” Dobbs said on Monday night, mispronouncing the name of the antimalarial drug. “And that is now being prescribed, it now holds great hope.”
While clinical trials are underway, it is not, as Dobbs suggests, currently “being prescribed” to patients with the coronavirus. Along with Fauci, both the FDA and the surgeon general have urged caution about touting it as some sort of miracle cure.
“And the president was right and frankly Fauci was wrong,” he added. “Because he said the president is speaking as a layman. No, he’s speaking as the president of the United States whose responsibility is for the lives and safety of millions of Americans.”
