evidence: Anthony Fauci has been different from any other prominent official Donald Trump has dealt with in his time as president. The difference is that Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is not afraid. To put it in terms Trump might recognize: What the hell does he have to lose? This reality does not make it possible to predict what Trump will do with Fauci—fire him, ignore him, give him buddylike Hey, we see things differently respect, or something else. Nothing about Trump is predictable, except his reduction of all discourse to the two themes of his own greatness and the unfairness of his critics. [...] Fauci is a sophisticated bureaucratic operator, and he knows how to "tell them exactly what’s the truth" as tactfully as he can. In his repeated press-briefing "corrections" of Trump’s fantasies and misstatements, Fauci has made it sound as if he is saying, "Yes, and …" rather than "No, that’s nuts." His occasional face-palm moments while Trump is riffing are little glimpses of indiscipline while not at the microphone. Onstage he is honest and polite.