The nation’s top infectious diseases expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci on Tuesday said that he doesn’t have much to say for President Donald Trump’s habit of tweeting nonsense about the coronavirus and undermining his expertise.
“I don’t tweet. I don’t even read them so I don’t really want to go there,” Fauci told Good Morning America’s George Stephanopoulos on Tuesday. “I just will continue to do my job no matter what comes out because I think it’s very important.”
The comments come as President Trump has returned to pushing unproven claims about an anti-malaria drug as an effective treatment to COVID-19 — a move that challenges the credibility of the nation’s leading infectious disease expert. On Monday, he retweeted a post that suggested Fauci had “misled the American public” about the legitimacy of the drug as treatment.
“We’re in the middle of a crisis with regard to an epidemic, a pandemic, this is what I do, this is what I’ve been trained for my entire professional life, and I’ll continue to do it,” Fauci said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci to @GStephanopoulos: “I don't tweet. I don't even read them so I don't really want to go there. I just will continue to do my job no matter what comes out because I think it's very important.” https://t.co/JgCvhTifYS pic.twitter.com/BJGIqwSjuT
— Good Morning America (@GMA) July 28, 2020
Late Monday, the President also retweeted a post that falsely claimed that there was a cure for the coronavirus.
“Covid has cure. America wake up,” the tweet read — it has since been deleted by Twitter.
Monday’s tweet as well as Trump’s recent renewed praise of hydroxychloroquine, follows a remark made by the President on Friday that he “often” regrets what he posts to Twitter, when Bartstool Sports executive David Portnoy asked if he ever lamented his tweets.
Although President Trump and Dr. Fauci maintain in public that they have a “very good” relationship, White House staff have smeared the infectious diseases expert in recent weeks, even sending out a memo earlier this month in which they purported to list off Fauci’s failures in handling the coronavirus pandemic.
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro earlier this month also attacked Fauci in an op-ed that was published by USA Today. The White House addressed the op-ed by saying that Navarro had acted without authorization.
