As late as February 29, Dr. Anthony Fauci was telling America it was safe to go to the mall, the movies, and the gym.

ADDED: As late as March 9, Fauci was publicly approving campaign rallies and the healthy going on a cruise.

During a Saturday, February 29 appearance on the NBC’s far-left Today Show, Fauci was asked point blank if Americans should stop enjoying their daily routines. Fauci answered point blank, “No.”

You can watch the video here. Here’s a transcript of the pertinent part:

TODAY SHOW: So Dr. Fauci, it’s Saturday morning in America, people are waking up right now with real concerns about this; they want to go to malls, and movies, maybe the gym, as well. Should we be changing our habits, and if so, how? FAUCI: No. Right now at this moment, there is no need to change anything that you’re doing on a day-by-day basis. Right now the risk is still low, but this could change. I’ve said that many times, even on this program. You got watch out, because although the risk is low now, you don’t need to change anything you’re doing. When you start to see community spread, this could change, and force you to become much more attentive to doing things that would protect you from, spread.

Fauci, who’s the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and on President Trump’s coronavirus task force, sounded very different on Sunday during an appearance on far-left CNN.

CNNLOL: The New York Times reported yesterday that you and other top officials wanted to recommend social and physical distancing guidelines to President Trump as far back as the third week of February, but the administration didn’t announce such guidelines to the American public until March 16th, almost a month later. Why? FAUCI: As I’ve said many times, we look at it from a pure health standpoint. We make a recommendation. Often the recommendation is taken. Sometimes it’s not. But it is what it is. We are where we are right now. CNNLOL: Do you think lives could have been saved if social distancing, physical distancing, stay-at-home measures, had started the third week of February instead of mid-March? FAUCI: You know, Jake, again, it’s the what would have, what could have. It’s very difficult to go back and say that. I mean, obviously, you could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives. Obviously, no one is going to deny that. But what goes into those kinds of decisions is complicated. But you’re right, I mean, obviously, if we had right from the very beginning shut everything down, it may have been a little bit different. But there was a lot of pushback about shutting things down back then.

So as late as February 29, Fauci was not so much as telling us to wash our hands more often. In fact, he was telling us point blank it was okay to engage in three of the most risk-for-infection behaviors imaginable: crowded malls, crowded movie theaters, and sweaty gyms.

But now he’s trying to claim he was telling the administration as far back as a week earlier that we needed to mitigate?

This just doesn’t compute.

Either Fauci was lying on the Today Show, which means he knew there was a serious threat and for whatever sociopathic reason he chose not to share that information. Or he was being highly disingenuous during his Sunday appearance on CNNLOL.

If Fauci indeed knew how serious the threat was on February 29, there is simply no valid excuse for him not to share that information with the public. He might have been on the White House task force, but a man of conscience would resign from that position if asked to lie or downplay something as deadly as an epidemic.

It’s not like Fauci would find himself jobless, bankrupt, and disgraced.

So which is it?

Did Fauci know we should have been social distancing by the third week of February, did he know how deadly this disease was and still told Americans to go to the gym, movies, and mall as late as February 29. Or…

Did he drop the president in the grease on Sunday?

Another point…

Earlier in the same Today Show interview — and remember this is on February 29, and he is already on Trump’s China virus task force — Fauci is practically sanguine about the state of the virus spread. He talks about how we were able to quarantine travelers from China, he talks about how much tougher community tracing will be, but acts as though that is under control now, especially with all the testing difficulties resolved.

He does say things could get worse, but his confidence in having the disease contained is unmistakable. He’s certainly confident enough to tell us go about our routines, and this confidence lines up — and remember, Fauci was advising Trump at the time — with the confidence Trump was expressing at the time.

Trump has already taken notice of the conflict between what Fauci told CNNLOL on Sunday and what Fauci told America as late as February 29:

You’ll note the hashtag at the end of the tweet retweeted by the president reads “#FireFauci.”

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.