Head of National Institutes of Health Says He Was Not Worried Trump Would Try to Fire Fauci
President Donald Trump stirred up speculation that he might try to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci , the head of the National Institue of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, after he retweeted someone who called for the firing of…
President Donald Trump stirred up speculation that he might try to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institue of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, after he retweeted someone who called for the firing of Fauci last week.
“I didn’t actually think that was likely to happen,” Francis Collins the director of the National Institutes of Health told Stat News in an interview.
He added, “So no I don’t think I was worried. And certainly, nobody reached out to me at that point.”
Collins added that he speaks with Fauci every night and does not even recall Trump’s tweet coming up in their conversation.
“Tony and I have a phone conversation every evening, sometime between 8 and 10 p.m., just to be sure that we’re completely in lockstep about all the things we’re trying to do with research. I don’t think we ever talked about that tweet.”
On April 12, Trump retweeted former Congressional candidate DeAnna Lorraine who criticized Fauci for saying more lives could have been saved if mitigation efforts were implemented sooner, as IJR previously reported.
“Fauci is now saying that had Trump listened to the medical experts earlier he could’ve saved more lives,” Lorraine said, adding, “Fauci was telling people on February 29th that there was nothing to worry about and it posed no threat to the US public at large.”