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.”
