President Donald Trump believes Americans are tired of hearing about COVID-19 from the nation’s top infectious disease expert.
In a call with his campaign staff on Monday, Trump addressed a wide array of issues from his Democratic opponent to the COVID-19 outbreak.
The president also took a few moments to lash out at the head of the National Institue of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, “People are tired of Covid. People are saying, ‘Whatever, just leave us alone.’ People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots,” according to reports.
“People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots,” President Trump says to campaign staff on a call happening right now. Then calls Fauci a “nice guy”. Sounds incredibly angry on this call says he’s gonna win and tells staff to ignore the “bullshit”
— John Santucci (@Santucci) October 19, 2020
“He’s been here for, like, 500 years. He’s like this wonderful sage telling us how — Fauci, if we listened to him, we’d have 700,000 [or] 800,000 deaths,” he added.
Trump also “there’s always a bomb” when Fauci appears on TV, but he believes it would be a “bigger bomb” to fire Fauci. However, Trump did say the infectious disease expert is a “nice guy.”
His comments come as the reportedly strained relationship between the two men has received fresh attention after the president’s re-election campaign featured him in a political ad without his consent.
The ad also took his words out of context to make it appear as though he was specifically praising the president’s response to the coronavirus outbreak.
Fauci has also been critical of Trump holding in-person events with no social distancing and lax mask-wearing requirements.
He said Trump’s events are “asking for trouble.”
“We’ve seen that when you have situations of congregate settings where there are a lot of people without masks, the data speak for themselves,” he explained.
During an interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” that aired on Sunday, Fauci was asked if he was surprised that Trump contracted the virus. He said, “Absolutely not.”
In case you missed it:
Dr. Fauci says he was “absolutely not” surprised that President Trump got sick with coronavirus after seeing POTUS at what “turned out to be a super-spreader event” at the White House. https://t.co/Iq75GoCErk pic.twitter.com/iDWEaoX582
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) October 18, 2020
He explained that he was “worried” Trump would become infected “when I saw him in a completely precarious situation of crowded, no separation between people, and almost nobody wearing a mask.”
Fauci was explicitly referring to Trump’s Rose Garden event, where he nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. That event has been singled out as a “superspreader” event after at least 34 White House staffers and “other contacts” tested positive for the virus following the event.
Trump also addressed his electoral prospects, and despite public polling that shows him losing the race, he said, “We’re going to win.”
“I wouldn’t have told you that maybe two or three weeks ago,” Trump added.
