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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – America’s leading infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Sunday that he had declined to appear in an advertisement for President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign and that his comments were taken out of context.
The announcement, released last week, looks at Trump’s effort to personally recover from the coronavirus, as well as his administration’s work to address the pandemic. The 30-second ad uses previous comments from Fauci in a way that suggests he was praising the president.
“I can’t imagine anyone could be doing more,” the ad shows Fauci.
But those comments are from a March interview, where Fauci, who has been director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984, was discussing the broader effort, including the White House coronavirus task force. .
“In my nearly five decades of public service, I have never publicly endorsed any political candidate,” Fauci said in a statement.
“The comments attributed to me without my permission in the Republican campaign ad were taken out of context from a comprehensive statement I made months ago about the efforts of federal public health officials,” his statement added.
Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh defended the announcement in a statement Sunday, saying Fauci’s words “are accurate and straight from the mouth of Dr. Fauci.
“As Dr. Fauci recently testified in the Senate, President Trump took the virus seriously from the start, acted swiftly and saved lives,” Murtaugh’s statement added.
Trump himself echoed that sentiment in a tweet Sunday, saying: “In fact, these are Dr. Fauci’s own words. We have done a ‘phenomenal’ job, according to certain governors.”
Fauci and Trump have not always agreed on how to handle the pandemic, which has infected nearly 7.7 million people in the United States and killed more than 214,000. Opinion polls show that a majority of voters disapprove of the president’s handling of the crisis.
On Friday, Fauci described a White House event on Sept. 26, after which several attendees, including Trump, tested positive for the virus, as a “super-spread event.” [nL1N2H00D4]
ABC News said Sunday it had asked the White House to allow Fauci to appear on “The Week,” but the administration refused to make him or other members of the task force available.
Alyssa Farah, the White House communications director, later said on Twitter that Fauci had made other media appearances earlier in the week, refuting the accusation that he was “gagged.”
(Reporting by Pete Schroeder; Editing by Peter Cooney)
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