No one would have expected the president to answer the question any differently. Anthony Fauci is his chief adviser on the Covid-19 pandemic, a celebrated infectious disease expert, and, for much of his lengthy career, one of the most trusted voices in all of government. For the White House, however, the fact that the question was even asked set off alarm bells.
Conservatives on social media for more than a year had undertaken efforts to discredit Fauci. Increasingly, those efforts had relied on exaggerations, misrepresentations and outright conspiracies. Now it had moved from the fringes to a presidential forum.
“Raising that question is [the result of] a successful smear campaign,” said Tim Durigan, the DNC’s lead analyst in its Counter Disinformation Program, said of a wide-ranging online onslaught against Fauci that included calling him a war criminal. “That a mainstream reporter is raising the idea that the president doesn’t have confidence in Dr. Fauci is a win” for those intent on spreading the misinformation.
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Source: Hamburgers, Fauci and election fraud: How Biden World combats disinformation | POLITICO