Apparently White House coronavirus task force member Dr. Anthony Fauci isn’t on the chopping block, despite President Donald Trump retweeting a post declaring it was “time to #FireFauci” on Sunday night.
“This media chatter is ridiculous – President Trump is not firing Dr. Fauci,” White House spokesperson Hogan Gidley said on Monday afternoon.
The doctor “has been and remains a trusted advisor” to Trump, according to Gidley.
But the White House’s rosy messaging about government officials who seem to have fallen from Trump’s good graces is rarely a good sign for the official: Former Cabinet members Rex Tillerson, Jeff Sessions, Scott Pruitt, and David Shulkin were all fired after either the White House or Trump claimed they still had his confidence.
Fauci likely drew Trump’s ire after the doctor told CNN “State of the Union” host Jake Tapper on Sunday morning that a faster response to COVID-19 from the government would’ve prevented a number of deaths from the outbreak.
“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,” Fauci said.
Trump did not issue any social distancing guidelines until several months after the virus began spreading throughout the country, and he has been reluctant to uphold the guidelines for fear that the resulting damaged economy would cost him the election in November.
