Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday suggested his strategy for dealing with the coronavirus pandemic was not taking Anthony Fauci’s advice.
The comments: Trump made the quip about President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser while disparaging the current administration’s dealings with China.
- “Remember I closed our country to China way early much earlier than Pelosi or anybody wanted it to happen,” Trump said, referring to the Speaker of the House, “including Dr. Fauci, who I always got along with pretty well but I usually did the opposite of what he wanted.”
- Trump, who made the remarks during an interview with Newsmax, also took the opportunity to tout his administration’s Operation Warp Speed, which, despite naysaying from journalists and some health experts, delivered a coronavirus vaccine in under a year.
- Fauci, a hero to many liberals who praised China’s response early in the pandemic, has recently reversed course and criticized the Trump administration for not pushing back hard enough on the communist nation.
The doctor: Fauci has faced criticism for — by his own admission — providing public health advice based on his desire to influence behavior rather than based on medical science.
- In perhaps the highest-profile example, Fauci told Americans at the beginning of the outbreak not to wear protective masks — only to tout wearing two masks as “common sense” less than a year later.
- Meanwhile, the theory that the coronavirus escaped from a Chinese lab — a possibility he publicly dismissed in 2020 — continues to gain mainstream traction.
