Who is Scott Atlas?
- fionacsweet
- Aug 12, 2020
- 2 min read
Three aides entered the room before Trump did during his daily coronavirus briefing on Monday: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, budget chief Russell Vought, and Scott Atlas.
Dr. Scott Atlas is a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution who often appears on Fox News and has advised Republicans in the past. His views on the coronavirus closely align with Trump's. He has previously stated that the idea that schools cannot reopen this fall is "hysteria" and also has pushed for college sports to be reinstated. (you can see what he looks like on the cover photo)
Dr. Atlas now has a new title: adviser to the President.
Trump said this: "He's working with us and will be working with us on the coronavirus. And he has many great ideas. And he thinks what we've done is really good, and now we'll take it to a new level." Atlas has been a critic, just like Trump, of extensive lockdowns and publicly agreed with the President on all measures that have to do with reopening schools. He joins the Trump administration at a time when he finds himself more and more at odds with other medical experts on the team, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx.
Multiple sources with knowledge of Trump and Atlas' relationship have told CNN that he has been informally advising Trump for weeks. Trump first noticed him on Fox News, where he claimed it doesn't matter "how many cases" there are in the US, wrongly asserted that those under 18 years old have "essentially no risk of dying," implied that high risk teachers should simply "know how to protect themselves," claimed "children almost never transmit the disease" and blamed the rise in cases in southern states on protests and border crossings without any evidence.
Atlas is seen as the person that can counter Fauci's beliefs. But, Trump has also recently become disillusioned by Birx as well ever since she praised House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in an interview. Therefore, two officials voiced concern that Trump brought Atlas in several months into the pandemic to diminish both Birx and Fauci's voices; the voices of medical experts he disagrees with. A piece of evidence that implies this claim may be correct is that Trump told his aides he did not want the experts who had at times contradicted him to join him at his daily briefings any longer. Instead, he claimed he would pass on the message to them himself. However, Atlas has already attended two briefings this week. Fauci was not present for either, and Birx sat on the sidelines of one.
I feel like this is concerning news, especially as Trump only brought this guy in to tell him what he wants to hear, and that is no way to handle a global pandemic. I wonder how bad the coronavirus misinformation will get now that Atlas will become the White House's new "voice of reason." Please listen to Fauci and Birx. They actually have science on their sides.
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