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The government’s top scientist, Anthony Fauci, said Sunday that an ad aired by Donald Trump’s re-election campaign was edited to appear to support the president’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
“In my nearly five decades of public service, I have never publicly endorsed any political candidate,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a statement sent to AFP.
The 30-second campaign ad cites Trump’s personal experience with the virus – “President Trump is recovering from the coronavirus, and so is the United States,” he says – before including a short clip in which Fauci appears to praise the Trump response. president to the pandemic.
“I can’t imagine anyone could be doing more,” Fauci is shown saying, creating the clear impression that he is referring to Trump.
But a full clip of Fauci’s comments, taken during a March interview with Fox News, shows the doctor saying, “I’ve spent most of my time on this. I’m in the White House pretty much every day with the task force. . It’s every day. So, I can’t imagine that under any circumstances someone could be doing more. “
In his statement Sunday, Fauci said: “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.”
Trump defended the video and his handling of the pandemic, and refuted the doctor’s criticism.
“In fact, these are Dr. Fauci’s own words. We have done a ‘phenomenal’ job, according to some governors,” the president wrote in a tweet.
As a prominent member of the White House task force on coronavirus, the 79-year-old doctor has often had to walk a fine line in trying to clarify, or correct, Trump’s often reckless claims about the disease or treatments. . and vaccines that are being developed against Covid-19.
At times, Fauci has aroused the ire of Trump, such as when the president in April retweeted a message containing the hashtag #FireFauci, before publicly insisting that the doctor was doing a great job.
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