The White House is stamping out termination rumors after President Donald Trump retweeted a call from a former Congressional candidate to fire top infectious disease specialist and White House coronavirus task force member Dr. Anthony Fauci Sunday, fueling speculation about his future.
“This media chatter is ridiculous – President Trump is not firing Dr. Fauci,” tweeted White House principal deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley Monday.
Sunday’s retweet was of DeAnna Lorraine, a former Congressional candidate. She wrote, “Fauci is now saying that had Trump listened to the medical experts earlier he could’ve saved more lives. Fauci was telling people on February 29th that there was nothing to worry about and it posed no threat to the US public at large. Time to #FireFauci…”
Trump retweeted that, adding, “Sorry Fake News, it’s all on tape. I banned China long before people spoke up. Thank you @OANN.”
Earlier Sunday, on Jake Tapper’s CNN show “State of the Union,” Fauci did say that earlier efforts against the coronavirus could have saved more lives.
“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,” he said after Tapper asked what would have happened if the social distancing measures implemented around the country in March had been instated earlier.