Saturday, November 13, 2021

Global – 251,788,329/5,077,907; USA – 46,910,412/759,552 I had an important TV interview with Ted Koppel to be aired on CBS tomorrow (see below). The main gist of the interview was the attacks on me from the radical far-right. However, Ted did bring up an issue that Hugh Hewitt brought up in a different context (see above). Ted asked me (and he is a good friend) whether or not I realized that I was speaking to the converted and the 50% of people who love me are already doing what I want them to do and the 30% who hate me will never do what I say no matter what and so have I ever considered pulling out of being a public spokesperson and just focus on my job as the director of NIAID. He originally asked whether I should “step down” because I had to remind him that I do have a very important job that has nothing to do with speaking to the press. When he understood that, he corrected himself and said why not just pull back from interviews since I'm wasting my time. I pointed out to him that there are still people who are on the fence whom I can convince and since I am such a valued spokesperson and a good communicator that the President and the Administration want very much for me to be out there. He got that and agreed, but it is interesting that he even brought it up. I have been including Larry Corey in one of the three weekly division director meetings because in my opinion he is one of the most brilliant clinical trialists in the country if not the world. However there is some growing tension that the division directors, particularly Emily Erbelding and Carl Dieffenbach resent Larry being there since they feel he is giving himself an unfair advantage inventing his ideas in front of me and putting them in a position that they have to agree since everybody knows that he is a very close personal friend of mine. And so, at the last meeting they spoke to me about asking Larry not to take part in the division director meetings anymore since this in their mind is a conflict of interest. They do have a point but I believe that they do not fully appreciate how much value added he is. And so tonight I had to call Larry and tell him that he can continue to very frequently consult with me with his ideas but that he cannot attend the division director meetings by zoom anymore unless invited for a specific ad hoc issue. He was disappointed, and vented a bit about their lack of creativity , but he understood and will stand down on this. I will continue to use him frequently as an advisor. PRESS: Interview with Ted Koppel for CBS “Sunday Morning” to air tomorrow (Sunday)