Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) announced on Tuesday that he would formally introduce legislation to protect National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci and other directors at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from getting improperly fired by President Donald Trump.
Markey said he was spurred to action after Trump retweeted a post claiming it was “time” to fire Fauci, who currently serves on the White House’s COVID-19 task force.
“We cannot allow Donald Trump to silence Dr. Fauci or any other government scientists. Now more than ever, we must listen to our public health, medical, and scientific experts,” the Democratic senator said. “If Donald Trump doesn’t like science-based evidence because it doesn’t support his partisan, fact-free view of the world, he cannot be permitted to silence the truth-tellers.”
Trump had retweeted a post on Sunday railing against Fauci for saying that deaths caused by the coronavirus outbreak could have been prevented had the federal government acted sooner. The post was hashtagged with “#FireFauci.”
The next day, White House spokesperson Hogan Gidley said the doctor “remains a trusted advisor” to Trump and that there are no plans to remove him.
For his part, Fauci seemed confident on Monday night that Trump wasn’t going to give him the ax.
“I was with him for quite a while today,” the doctor said during an interview on C-Span’s Washington Journal. “He has no intention of doing that.”
While I doubt something like this would stop IMPOTUS from kicking out Fauci should he so choose, I do like this action which puts the topic of a politicized firing front and center.
One would have liked it to include all key government scientists, and one would have liked it to have been passed decades ago, even if one would have liked to never have seen a need for it in the first place … but still, it’s good.
When will it become law?
Why doesn’t he introduce a bill requiring that Trump make virus testing available to all at will, and N95 masks for all. Do something productive instead of starting fights that really can’t go anywhere.
WoRd is, Trump is GoiNg to fire CuOmo.
The way I understand it he works of HHS and Trump can’t fire him. I would prefer they spend thier time on other things, like maybe barring FEMA from commandeering supplies destined for blue states. That’s something that needs to be more prominent in the national news.