[ad_1]
OPA-LOCKA, Fla. (AP) – President Donald Trump suggests he will fire Dr. Anthony Fauci after Tuesday’s election as his gap with the nation’s top infectious disease expert widens as the country watches his outbreak. most alarming of the coronavirus since spring.
Speaking at a campaign rally in Opa-locka, Florida, Trump expressed frustration that rising cases of the virus that has killed more than 231,000 people in the United States this year remain prominent in the news, prompting chants of “Fire Fauci” from his sympathizers.
“Don’t tell anyone, but let me wait until a little after the election,” Trump responded to thousands of supporters early Monday, adding that he appreciated their “advice.”
As he prepared to fly to a campaign stop in Ohio hours later, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden tweeted: “We need a president who really listens to experts like Dr. Fauci.”
Biden has tried to keep the presidential campaign focused on what he says was a disastrous federal response to the pandemic. Trump is fighting back by using the final hours of the race to accuse his opponent of wanting to force the country back into a lockdown to slow the spread of the virus.
Still, Trump’s comments on Fauci less than 48 hours before the polls close are likely to ensure that the pandemic will remain front and center heading into election day.
It’s as blunt as Trump has been in suggesting he was serious about trying to remove Fauci from office. He had previously expressed that he was concerned about the political backlash in removing the popular and respected doctor before the elections.
The latest outburst follows Fauci making his sharpest criticism yet of the White House response to the coronavirus and Trump’s public claim that the nation is “turning around.”
Fauci has openly expressed that Trump has ignored his advice to contain the virus, saying he has not spoken to Trump in more than a month. It has raised the alarm that the nation is headed for a challenging winter if not done sooner to curb the spread of the disease.
In an interview with The Washington Post this weekend, Fauci warned that the United States will have to deal with “a lot of damage” in the coming weeks due to the increase in coronavirus cases.
Fauci said the United States “could not be in a worse position” to stop the increase in cases as more people flock indoors during the colder fall and winter months. He says the United States will have to make an “abrupt change” in public health precautions.
Fauci added that he believed that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden “is taking it seriously from a public health perspective,” while Trump “sees it from a different perspective.” Fauci, who is part of the White House coronavirus task force, said that perspective emphasizes “the economy and the reopening of the country.”
In response, White House spokesman Judd Deere said Trump always puts the welfare of the people first and Deere accuses Fauci of having decided to “go politics” just before Tuesday’s election. Deere said Fauci “has a duty to express concerns or push for a change in strategy,” but is instead “choosing to criticize the president in the media and make his political leanings known.”
Trump had already stepped up his attacks on Biden in recent days for having vowed to follow the advice of scientists in responding to the pandemic. While Trump denounces that Biden’s measures to curb the pandemic could keep Americans at home and hurt the economy, the former vice president has responded that the only way out of the health crisis is to heed the warnings of Fauci and other professionals. doctors. Biden has also been careful not to endorse another national lockdown.
Trump has recently relied on the advice of Stanford physician Scott Atlas, who has no prior experience in infectious disease or public health, as his top scientific adviser on the pandemic. Atlas has been a public skeptic about the use of masks and other measures widely accepted by the scientific community to slow the spread of the virus.
Other members of the White House coronavirus task force have become increasingly vocal about what they see as a dangerous spike in the virus’s decline.
Trump’s aggressive approach to Fauci carries some risks with the upcoming elections.
A Kaiser Family Foundation survey conducted in September showed that 68% of Americans have a lot or a lot of confidence in Fauci to provide reliable information about the coronavirus. That compares with 52% of Americans who trusted Biden to do that and only 40% for Trump.
