Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is beloved by the media, essentially sliced and diced the fake news at Monday’s White House coronavirus briefing. It’s important to understand why.

Dr. Fauci appeared on CNN Sunday and was peppered with hypothetical questions by Jake Tapper. Here’s what Dr. Fauci said when Tapper asked if lives could have been saved if we started social distancing earlier:

It’s very difficult to go back and say that. Obviously you could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives… But what goes into those kinds of decisions is complicated.

Predictably, the media spent Sunday and Monday using Fauci’s word to smear the president and insinuate that Dr. Fauci was blaming President Trump for not acting sooner. So at Monday’s press briefing, Dr. Fauci insisted on setting the record straight. Here’s what he said:

I was asked a hypothetical question and hypothetical questions sometimes can get you into some difficulty… That was taken as a way that maybe somehow something was at fault here…

The first and only time that Dr. Birx and I went in and formally made a recommendation to the president to … really have strong mitigation, we discussed it… The president listened and went to the mitigation.

The second time that I went with Dr. Birx into the president and said 15 days are not enough, we need to go 30 days. Obviously there were people who had a problem with that because of the potential secondary effects. Nonetheless, at that time the president went with the health recommendations.

What is clear from Dr. Fauci’s statement is that, in spite of all the left’s claims to the contrary, the president did in fact follow the recommendations of government health experts, and he acted on social distancing the very first time Fauci asked him to do so. 

By the way, when one reporter asked Fauci if he was “pressured” to make his statement, he quickly shut her down, saying, “No … everything I do is voluntary. Don’t even imply that.”

The Timeline

Here’s an important timeline to keep in mind as the left tries to rewrite history and spin a false narrative:

• The CDC issued its first warning to doctors about COVID-19 on January 8.

• The first case of COVID-19 in the U.S. wasn't publicly confirmed until January 21.

• President Trump shut down travel to China on January 31, and the left and its media allies viciously attacked him for doing so.

• What were Washington Democrats obsessed with in January? Impeachment.

• The first case of community spread or “unknown origin” wasn’t confirmed until February 26.

• Acting on the advice of Dr. Fauci and others, President Trump announced the first round of social distancing recommendations on March 16.

Signs of Hope

Here are some interesting facts that should help ease our minds and that argue for less panic and more common sense.

• There is more evidence that many more people have had COVID-19 and their symptoms were relatively mild.

• That suggests current coronavirus mortality rates are significantly overstated and may in fact be lower than the typical flu season.

• While there are tragic exceptions, COVID-19 has had nowhere near the impact on children as the seasonal flu. It may not have been necessary to close all schools.

• The morbidity rate for COVID-19 is increased by two key factors: age and preexisting health conditions.

• Tucker Carlson reported Monday that out of nearly 6,200 COVID-related deaths in New York City, only 128 had no known preexisting medical conditions.

• This argues for isolating the elderly and those with serious conditions. Prudence seems to suggest that most people can resume their normal routines.

• Germany is taking steps to reopen its economy and end pandemic restrictions, beginning with reopening schools.

Pelosi Checks Out

The federal program advancing emergency funds to suffering small businesses is rapidly running out of money. Unbelievably, Nancy Pelosi adjourned the House of Representatives and announced that she would not return to Washington until at least May 4. 

This is one of the most irresponsible actions I have ever seen. If you’re a small-business owner struggling to survive this shutdown, Pelosi just indicated that she couldn’t care less about you and your employees as she refuses to approve more funds for the program without hundreds of billions more for her left-wing priorities.

Bernie Wins

We’re all laughing that Joe Biden is hiding in his basement, but it’s actually a problem. While the media is doing its best to tear Trump to shreds every day, Biden is getting a free pass. 

Every once in a while he pops up and says something very revealing. That happened Monday when Bernie Sanders officially endorsed Joe Biden. In response to Sanders’s endorsement, Biden vowed:

We can transform this nation. We can transform it so that it goes down in history, with your help Bernie, as one of the most progressive administrations since [Franklin] Roosevelt.

Sanders may have lost the Democrat primary, but his agenda clearly won as Biden is embracing one socialist big-government policy after another. It is worth repeating that Biden is no centrist. He's no moderate.

And speaking of transforming America, Barack Obama, who once called for “fundamentally transforming” our country, finally endorsed his former vice president yesterday. 

The fawning media are making a big deal about it, but it really speaks volumes about Biden’s weakness that Obama waited until the primary contest was over and his endorsement no longer matters.