A frustrated and sometimes foul-mouthed President Donald Trump claimed in a campaign call that people are tired of hearing about the deadly pandemic that has killed more than 215,000 Americans and has criticized Dr. Anthony Fauci as a “disaster” that has existed for “500 years”.
Referring to Fauci and other health officials as “idiots,” Trump declared that the country is ready to emerge from the health disaster even as cases are on the rise again and medical experts warn that the worst may be yet to come.
Unsubstantiated asserting that if Fauci were in charge, more than half a million people would die in the United States, Trump described the recommendations offered by his own administration to mitigate the spread of the disease as an onerous nuisance.
“People are tired of Covid. I have the biggest rallies I’ve ever had, and we have Covid,” Trump said, telephoning a call with campaign staff from the hotel that bears his name in Las Vegas, where he spent two nights at middle of a western. field swing. “People say whatever. Leave us alone. They’re tired of it. People are tired of listening to Fauci and all these idiots.”
“Fauci is a good guy,” Trump continued. “He’s been here for 500 years.”
Later, a Trump adviser questioned the wisdom of attacking Fauci just two weeks before the election. The adviser described the president’s comments as “unwise” because they keep the focus on the coronavirus pandemic, the issue that campaign officials would like to avoid the most.
Fauci has been the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984 and is a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Around the same time that Trump was furious over the phone, Fauci was receiving the first Presidential Citation for Exemplary Leadership from the National Academy of Medicine during a virtual ceremony. Fauci said he was “speechless” while receiving the award.
“We have many challenges ahead of us and I can’t help but think that we are really going through a time that is eerily unscientific in certain segments of our society,” Fauci said during the virtual event.
Trump openly criticized Fauci as his campaign currently airs a television ad with the doctor implying that Fauci endorsed Trump’s handling of the pandemic.
Fauci has questioned the ad, saying his words were taken out of context and asked the campaign to remove it. But the announcement was widely seen as an acknowledgment by the president’s campaign staff that Fauci has credibility with voters who have rejected Trump’s response.
The president lags behind Democratic rival Joe Biden in polls, in part due to his mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic. Trump recently returned to the election campaign after being diagnosed with the virus and has avoided public health protocols for his political rallies. On the call, the president again poked fun at Biden’s social distancing measures.
As he sweeps the electoral battlefields, Trump has been seeking a final message that will resonate with voters confused by the virus and distrustful of his response. Attempts by his advisers to convince Trump to take a more serious tone about the pandemic have stalled. At a rally in Nevada on Sunday, Trump attempted to attack Biden saying his rival would “listen to scientists” if he were elected president.
By contrast, Trump has stopped attending the meetings of his coronavirus task force, whose influence has drastically waned. Instead, the president has relied on the advice of Dr. Scott Atlas, a radiologist whose views on mask use and other mitigation practices disagree with nearly all scientific opinions.
The dynamics have sparked tensions among government health officials, including Fauci, whose warnings about the virus Trump has criticized for months.
“Fauci is a disaster. If he listened to him, we would have 500,000 dead,” he said in Monday’s campaign call, before later saying it would be 700,000 or 800,000.
“If there’s a reporter, you can have him just like I said, I couldn’t care less,” Trump said. A source gave CNN access to the call.
Trump’s attempt to shore up his campaign staff 15 days before Election Day came amid widespread concerns among Republicans that his inability to perfect a final message will have dire effects not only on his own career but also for control of the United States Senate.
Even when his anger was evident on the call, Trump sought to project optimism.
“This is the best single I’ve had in any campaign,” Trump said of his re-election chances. “Today is the best day I have felt in any of the campaigns.”
“We are going to win,” he said. “I wouldn’t have said that three weeks ago.”
After stories surfaced about finger-pointing in the campaign ahead of a possible loss, Trump insisted he was satisfied with the work his team is doing, including his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, who has been blamed internally. for mismanaging Trump’s Covid diagnosis and subsequently. hospitalization.
“I love Mark Meadows. It took me two years to get him out of Congress. Mark Meadows is doing a good job. I’m not firing him.”
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