Caught Like A Fat Little Orange Rat, Trump Throws Extremist Advisor Peter Navarro Under The Bus

Lambchop by Nancy Ohanian

Yesterday, the Washington Post published, without comment, that "the White House moved to distance itself from an extraordinary op-ed in USA Today in which Peter Navarro, President Trump’s trade adviser, heavily criticized Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease expert, for his handling of the pandemic." Even a toady like Moscow Mitch decided to signal Senate Republicans that it would be safe for them to break with the Trumpist Regime on this. When asked by a reporter, he said that his level faith in Dr. Fauci is "total."

Does anyone imagine that Navarro would have attacked Fauci-- and so viciously-- without an OK from Trump? In fact, L.A. Times reporters Eli Stokols and Noah Bierman wrote yesterday that the regime was forced to spend time and energy dealing with the fallout from Navarro's smear tactic and the Regime campaign against Fauci. "White House officials," they reported, "tried to distance the president from the column. Deputy press secretary Alyssa Farah tweeted that it 'didn’t go through normal White House clearance processes and is the opinion of Peter alone.' Trump, she continued, 'values the expertise of the medical professionals advising his Administration.' But there’s little doubt that Navarro’s broadside reflected-- and appealed to-- the president’s own frustration with Fauci, who has not been invited to the Oval Office to brief Trump since early June and whose proposed television appearances often have been blocked by the White House. According to one administration official, who was not authorized to speak on the record, Navarro had the president’s permission to write the column. 'Not only was he authorized by Trump, he was encouraged,' the official said."




During an interview with The Atlantic Fauci called the attack, part of a campaign by Trump's inner circle, "bizarre." ABCNews.com reported that the White House knows they're in a bad position here and are trying to distance Trump from the mess.

The latest extraordinary escalation in the attacks on Fauci began in earnest, when, in a remarkable broadside against Fauci, who polls show the American public broadly trusts for information on the novel coronavirus, Navarro wrote in the op-ed for USA Today Tuesday that "Fauci has a good bedside manner with the public, but he has been wrong about everything I have interacted with him on."

Navarro, who has no known medical expertise, went on to contrast his own response to the coronavirus pandemic with misleading characterizations of Fauci's own comments on the virus. A portion of what he wrote was also included as a statement from him in a Washington Post article published Saturday.

"So when you ask me whether I listen to Dr. Fauci’s advice, my answer is: only with skepticism and caution," Navarro wrote.

Asked on Wednesday if he was OK with Navarro's op-ed, Trump did not take issue with its content.

"Well, that's Peter Navarro, but I have a very good relationship with Dr. Fauci," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

Later, as he departed the White House en route to Atlanta, Trump said Navarro should not have written an opinion piece "representing himself."

"Well, he made a statement representing himself," Trump said. "He shouldn't be doing that."

Asked about Navarro's attack and the White House campaign to discredit him during a streaming question-and-answer session with The Atlantic, Fauci responded, "It is a bit bizarre. I don't really fully understand it. You know, I think that would happen with that list that came out I think if you sit down and talk to the people who are involved in that. They are really, I think taken aback by what a big mistake that was, and I think if you talk to reasonable people in the White House they realize that was a major mistake on their part because it doesn't do anything but reflect poorly on them.

"And I don't think that that was their intention. I don't know-- I cannot figure out in my wildest dreams why they would want to do that, but, I mean, I think they realize now that that was not a prudent thing to do because it's only reflecting negatively on them. I can't explain Peter Navarro-- he's in a world by himself. So, I don't even want to go there,” Fauci said.

Among Navarro's qualms with Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is over the efficacy of the antimalarial medication hydroxychloroquine. Long touted by President Donald Trump and Navarro as a promising treatment for COVID-19, Fauci for months disagreed, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration determined it was "unlikely to be effective in treating COVID-19."

The latest criticism fit a pattern of the Trump administration minimizing public health experts and prioritizing an economic recovery, which the president sees as key to his reelection chances.

Earlier Wednesday, a senior White House official, director of strategic communications Alyssa Farah, tweeted that Navarro's op-ed "didn’t go through normal White House clearance processes and is the opinion of Peter alone."

While she added that the president "values the expertise of the medical professionals advising his Administration," she did not disavow anything Navarro wrote.

Separately, a senior White House official said Navarro "went rogue, and put out his personal opinion without any approvals." The official, who would speak only on the condition of anonymity, said "the White House does not stand by these unauthorized opinions and Mr. Navarro owes Dr. Fauci an apology.”

Navarro did not respond to a request for comment on whether he got approval from the president or any other White House official before publishing the op-ed; the White House also did not respond when asked if he got permission from any official outside the communications office.

Asked if Navarro would be punished for writing the op-ed, a White House official said, “We do not comment on internal personnel matters, but [White House] Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is fully engaged.”

A second, senior White House official confirmed Meadows’ involvement but would not elaborate.

Navarro's attack came as the White House sought to discredit Fauci, who has provided a more blunt and sobering assessment of the state of the epidemic than the president and his top aides have sought to project-- one they see as politically inconvenient as Trump campaigns for re-election.

Over the weekend, the White House provided several media outlets with a misleading list of comments made by Fauci, in an effort to undercut him.

Over a week ago, I had noted that Trump was beginning the inevitable attack against Fauci, something Trump was already doing himself by July 9. On Monday the White House was pretending Trump had nothing to do with it while denying to the very people who they were leaking oppo-research on Fauci to that any oppo-research was being leaked.

It must drive Trump bonkers that every poll that has asked people who they trust more, Trump or Fauci comes up with the same answer: Fauci. ABC News continued that "despite the denial of a privately waged smear campaign, one of the president’s top aides made no effort to hide his disdain, airing criticism of Fauci in plain view on social media. The White House's deputy chief of staff for communications, Dan Scavino, who has been by the president’s side since the 2016 campaign, on Sunday posted a cartoon on Facebook depicting Fauci as a running faucet washing the U.S. economy down the drain. 'Sorry, Dr. Faucet! At least you know if I’m going to disagree with a colleague, such as yourself, it’s done publicly-- and not cowardly, behind journalists with leaks. See you tomorrow!' Scavino wrote in a caption accompanying the cartoon.

On Monday, Trump himself shared a tweet disparaging Fauci-- misconstruing a months-old comment Fauci had made-- before telling reporters later in the day that he liked Fauci "personally," had "a very good relationship" with him, and considered him "a very nice person."

But, he added, "I don't always agree with him."

While the president and White House have sought to downplay the appearance of conflict that they have directly stoked, Fauci has been increasingly sidelined within the White House's coronavirus task force.

He is no longer a regular presence at task force briefings with the media led by the vice president, he was not a participant on the vice president’s weekly call with governors on Monday, and it’s been two months since Fauci says he has personally briefed the president.

That's right... Pence prefers to consult Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma instead. Peter Nicholas noted atThe Atlantic "Targeting Fauci seems like a tragic misuse of White House time and energy if officials’ aim is to defeat the coronavirus. But Trump appears more concerned with discrediting Fauci... The attempt to discredit Fauci’s public-health expertise is a political move, and one with disastrous implications. As much as Trump wants and needs Americans to see the virus as a nuisance that’s soon to be overcome, Fauci is a recurring reminder that the crisis remains a grave and enduring threat, and that Trump has mishandled the pandemic. The Americans who believe the White House’s anti-science campaign risk cutting themselves off from potentially life-saving information."

Private Prisons Want Trump's Zero Tolerance Agenda-- Can You Guess Why?

What a video! MJ Hegar is running for the Texas congressional seat that covers Williamson and Bell counties, TX-31, between Waco and Austin. It runs from Killeen in the north and Round Rock in the south. The PVI is a daunting R+10. Romney won it 59.6% to 38.3% and Trump won it 53.5% to 40.8%. Bell County includes part of Fort Hood, the largest American military base in the world. It's a traditionally Democratic district but Carter, can ultra-conservative Republican, has been in office since 2002. He never deviates from a hardline GOP approach. For example, on Thursday he voted for the extreme anti-immigration bill and for the far right Agriculture bill.

Carter is a backbencher you rarely hear about outside of his own district. He doesn't do anything except for for extreme right-wing proposals. His Trump adhesion score is 98.8%, the second highest in Congress after whip Steve Scalise. He's a member of the Tea Party Caucus. He's also a bit of a crook

On Thursday the Dallas Morning News revealed that Carter, along with John Culberson (R-TX) and Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX) have taken massive bribes from GEO and it's executives, the private prison company that stands to gain the most from Trump's "zero tolerance" policy that locks up huge numbers of border crossers and their children. GEO operates the private immigration detention facilities in Karnes City, Laredo, Pearsall and Conroe.

Culberson is facing a tough re-election race against Democrat Lizzie Fletcher. The race has been rated a ‘toss up’ by nonpartisan analyst Cook Political Report.

Culberson received the most funding from GEO out of Texas members of Congress, but GEO is also the top donor this cycle for U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, who received $32,400, and Round Rock Republican Rep. John Carter, who received $31,600.

Both Culberson and Cuellar serve on the House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee, which funds private immigration detention centers. Culberson is also the chairman of and Carter serves on the House Appropriations subcommittee on commerce, justice and science, which oversees funding for private prisons.

Cuellar’s campaign manager Colin Strother said that GEO is one of the largest employers in Cuellar’s district, and that Cuellar has not allowed campaign contributions to influence his decisions.

“If you live in a district in the state of Washington, you get boating money. If you live in a district in Nebraska, you get agriculture money. We have a district with lots of jail facilities that employ lots of people,” Strother said.

Culberson’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Henry Cuéllar and Vicente Gonzalez were 2 of the 3 Democrats-- the other was another Blue Dog, Fireman Vela-- who refused to sign a bipartisan discharge petition to allow a DACA debate, killing it. Now we know why.

Another one of the largest groups that runs private immigration detention centers in the United States is CoreCivic. The company runs facilities in Houston, Laredo, Dilley and Taylor.

CoreCivic PACs have given less money to candidates than GEO, but still contributed to three Texans, according to OpenSecrets.org: Culberson with $11,000, McCaul with $3,500 and Cuellar with $1,500.

Thursday, the Houston Chronicle reported on the fate of the more than 2,400 children who are under 12 years old that the Trump regime separated from their parents and locked up in Texas.

“It’s chaos,” said Michelle Brané, director of migrant rights at the Women’s Refugee Commission, a national advocacy group. “Everything is just moving really fast … I am not convinced they have a plan for reunifying those they have separated.”

...Under Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy, parents usually served just a few days of prison time for illegally crossing the border before going to immigration detention centers run by the Department of Homeland Security. From there, they can be quickly deported without their children. In one case, a Guatemalan father was deported and had no idea where his 18-month-old toddler was for five months until they were reunited in December.

The Office of Refugee Resettlement has said it is not routinely informed about how or when parents and children were separated and where the adults may be.

“You’re talking about 2,000-plus children scattered across America,” said U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Houston Democrat. “What a difficult challenge and our fear is that we lose one child.”

The sudden influx of so many very young children has overwhelmed the federal government, which has put out emergency calls for contractors across the nation to provide more bed space and recruit more foster parents. It has meant some children are not put in a foster home with a family, as has generally been the goal for “tender age” kids, but instead may stay for weeks and even months in a residential shelter intended for older children. Most child advocates believe this is not in the best interests of the children.

“Kids, particularly young kids, should be in a smaller, more community-based setting, as opposed to the larger scale institutional-like settings,” said Kathryn Kuennen, associate director of children's services with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which cares for unaccompanied minors.

I haven't talked to a Democratic congressional candidate who isn't concerned about this. Yesterday Randy Bryce, for one, was majorly pissed off. This is what he told his own supporters:

Yesterday, Melania Trump boarded a plane to visit the US-Mexico border, where over 2300 children have been separated from their parents, wearing a jacket that read on the back, "I really don't care. Do u?"

Yeah Melania, I really freaking care.

I care about everyday Americans. I care about hardworking families in Wisconsin and at the border. And millions of Americans, all across the country, stood up and showed that they care too.

But that isn't enough. While Trump may have signed an executive order, if you read the fine print, it doesn't solve the problem. All this order does is turn family separation into family incarceration. And to make matters worse, Donald Trump is still refusing to reunite the children the US has already separated from their parents under his watch.

We have to keep the pressure up because we have to make sure these families are released and reunited immediately. To do that, we need to demand an end to Trump's zero tolerance immigration policy.

Call your representatives now and demand they support an end to Trump's zero tolerance immigration policy. Dial (202) 224-3121 to reach the Capitol Switchboard and speak with your representative.

...We have to keep up the fight, because when we fight, we win.