If Donald Trump finally putting on a mask made you think that perhaps he’s seen the light, you’d be wrong. The US president has started to blatantly prioritise his presidential reelection campaign over the lives of Americans in recent weeks and seemingly with no one else to blame, he’s started to turn on America’s foremost authority on infectious diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Fauci, who has been a part of the Trump administrations coronavirus task force from the get go, has pretty much been telling the truth in regards to just how bad the virus is. While he hasn’t always gotten it right, the virus is new and a lot of what we thought we knew about how to deal with it has evolved.

With Fauci becoming increasingly vocal against Trump’s seeming lack of concern for the well being of Americans, the White House has mobilised to use the man as a scapegoat. In an interview with the Financial Times last week, Fauci let slip that he and Trump have not been on talking terms for a while now.

It’s gotten to the point where the two men are now responding to each other via interviews and statements, with Fauci disputing Trump’s claim that “99%” of coronavirus cases in the United States were “totally harmless” and The Trump administration releasing a statement over the weekend on all the times Fauci was wrong about the virus.

It was almost as if Fauci was a political opponent with the way the White House were discrediting him. It’s become plain to see that Fauci’s continued insistence on speaking the truth about the virus is starting to hurt Trumps reelection campaign, and you best bet that he’s having none of it.

Trump’s continued push for the government to reopen the country is part of his narrative that Democrats, the CDC, the media and even doctors are lying about how bad the country’s pandemic is in order to crush the economy.

Fauci really isn’t at fault here but because he has the best interest of the country and not the best interest of the president in mind, he’s now on the receiving end of Trump’s for the lack of a better word, bulls**t. All that being said though, the president is unlikely to fire the well respected doctor, who commands better poll results than the president himself.

Fauci has held the position of director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984 and has advised every president since Ronald Reagan. Firing him would actually prove to be difficult given that Trump would need reasonable cause. On top of that, Fauci can only be fired by a direct supervisor and that’s not Trump.

All in all, the move is a sign of the times. From being in a confident position at the start of the pandemic to resorting to tactics such as this, Trump is clearly running out of cards to play at this point. The US is fast approaching the 3.5 million infected mark, with almost 140,000 people succumbing to the virus.

Should Donald Trump continue to prioritise reelection over his people, he may not even have much of a country left to run come November.