Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s campaign on Monday ripped into the White House after an unnamed official sent news outlets a list of Fauci’s past comments regarding the coronavirus that later turned out to be inaccurate.
On Sunday, an unnamed White House official told news outlets in a statement that “several” White House officials are “concerned about the number of times Dr. Fauci has been wrong on things,” according to reports in the Washington Post, NBC News and CNN.
In a statement shared with TPM, Biden campaign director of rapid response Andrew Bates ripped into President Trump for “disastrously mismanaging” the coronavirus crisis by “failing to heed the warnings and guidance of medical experts” such as White House Coronavirus Task Force member Dr. Anthony Fauci.
“Infections in the United States have skyrocketed, surpassing every other country in the world by far, specifically because of Trump’s refusal to listen to science,” Bates said.
Bates then railed against the Trump administration’s “disgusting” efforts to blame Fauci amid surging cases of the coronavirus throughout the country.
“The President’s disgusting attempt to pass the buck by blaming the top infectious disease expert in the country — whose advice he repeatedly ignored and Joe Biden consistently implored him to take — is yet another horrible and revealing failure of leadership as the tragic death toll continues to needlessly grow,” Bates said.
Shortly before the Biden campaign issued its criticism against the White House’s memo, Trump told reporters on Monday afternoon that he has a “very good relationship” with Fauci.
“I have a very good relationship with Dr. Fauci. I’ve had for a long time, right from the beginning,” Trump said. “I find him to be a very nice person. I don’t always agree with him.”
The President’s latest comments came on the heels of White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany denying that its memo criticizing Dr. Anthony Fauci’s past comments was the result of opposition research against the nation’s top infectious disease expert.
When pressed on why the White House tried to discredit Fauci by sending opposition research-like memos to reporters citing an unnamed official, McEnany flat out denied that there is any opposition research “being dumped to reporters” and insisted that “we provided a direct answer to what was a direct question.”
Totally predictable. Wonder who thought it was a good idea to release the memo trashing Fauci. Those people around Trump need to raise their IQ 20 point just to be considered stupid.
This has Trump’s stubby little fingerprints all over it. Too jealous to abide the fact Fauci is trusted and respected much more than he is, and too cowardly to fire him face to face.
Schweet, this is a twofer. Trump is losing support because he’s helpless emotionally or intellectually to deal with this pandemic, and in his dealings with Fauci he’s demonstrating exactly how damaged of a person he is. Pitch-perfect response.
OT: Mary Trump now free to speak publicly just as her book is released tomorrow.
https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/1282805887913136131?s=21
Nearly 100% compliance with the mask requirement in our rural grocery store. The only guy not wearing a mask appeared to be a homeless guy. Could have been a Trump voter, sometimes it’s hard to tell.