The White House on Monday dismissed reports that President Donald Trump might fire Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leading member of the administration’s coronavirus task force.
“This media chatter is ridiculous — President Trump is not firing Dr. Fauci,” spokesman Hogan Gidley told The Wall Street Journal. “Dr. Fauci has been and remains a trusted adviser to President Trump.”
Trump over the weekend retweeted a former Republican congressional candidate who used the hashtag “FireFauci,” after the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases criticized the Trump administration for not reacting to the coronavirus outbreak fast enough, saying the government “could have saved more lives” if it had embraced social distancing measures sooner in an interview with CNN on Sunday.
“Fauci was telling people on Feb. 29th that there was nothing to worry about and it posed no threat to the US public at large,” the former candidate, DeAnna Lorraine, tweeted after the interview aired. “Time to #FireFauci…”
Trump retweeted this message with a comment defending his response, and noting his decision to restrict travel with China.
The president and Fauci previously appeared to clash over an antimalarial drug that Trump has promoted as a possible treatment for COVID-19, a claim that Fauci has repeatedly said is not backed up by scientific data.