Trump's COVID infection creating chaos among White House health officials: report

According to The Daily Beast, President Donald Trump's infection with COVID-19 has been a breaking point for White House health advisers frustrated with the administration's mixed messaging and failures.

"There was anger and internal frustrations over how the virus in general and the president’s infection in particular had been handled," reported Erin Blanco and Asawin Suebsaeng. "Among White House staff and the re-election effort, some advisers were furious that Trump wasn’t talked out of attending a high-roller fundraiser at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club on Thursday night, after the White House already learned of his exposure to the virus, two administration officials said. The senior official was also exasperated that the way the White House bungled the information rollout in the past couple days left the administration wide-open to allegations of yet another disastrous cover-up."

One sticking point was Trump's increasing reliance on Dr. Scott Atlas, who has been accused of pushing "herd immunity" by allowing the disease to spread. Another frustration, according to the report, is that the outbreak happened just as the administration was trying to make a new push for schools to reopen.

"For weeks the president’s medical advisers have been increasingly on the outs," said the report. "But in recent days officials have grown increasingly resigned to the idea that keeping the public informed about the threats the virus poses while maintaining favor with the president is an impossible task."

“It’s just f*ck-up after f*ck-up,” said one official on the president's coronavirus task force. “I don’t have much more to add [beyond] that.” Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the most visible members of the team, also expressed his frustrations, saying, “We used to meet seven days a week. Then five days a week. We’re now meeting one day a week and at most two times a week.”