‘I have not been misleading the American public.’ Fauci responds to viral Trump tweet
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, said that he hasn’t misled the American public “under any circumstance” after President Trump retweeted a claim saying that he had.
“I’m just going to certainly continue doing my job. I don’t tweet. I don’t even read them so I don’t really want to go there,” Fauci told ABC’s ”Good Morning America” on Tuesday. “I just will continue to do my job no matter what comes out because I think it’s very important.”
“We’re in the middle of a crisis with regard to an epidemic, a pandemic, this is what I do, this is what I’ve been trained for my entire professional life, and I’ll continue to do it,” he said.
When asked about what Trump retweeted, Fauci responded: “I have not been misleading the American public under any circumstances.”
Trump retweeted a podcast on Monday featuring former White House adviser Steve Bannon, who said that Fauci “misled the American public on many issues,” The Guardian reported.
Trump has also called Fauci “a little bit of an alarmist,” during an interview with Fox News on July 19.
“Well, I mean people have their opinion about my reaction to things. I consider myself more a realist than an alarmist,” Fauci told CNN.
Trump also retweeted a Breitbart video with unproven claims that hydroxychloroquine cures COVID-19, McClatchy News previously reported. The video has been taken down from YouTube, Twitter and Facebook after getting more than 14 million views on Facebook.
“The overwhelming prevailing clinical trials that have looked at the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine have indicated that it is not effective in [treating the] coronavirus disease,” Fauci said in the Good Morning America interview.
Peter Navarro, the White House’s top trade adviser, published a USA Today op-ed on July 14 saying Fauci is “wrong about everything.” The publication later amended the piece with a note saying Navarro’s claims “were misleading or lacked context” and that the piece did not meet “fact-checking standards.”
“I cannot figure out in my wildest dreams why they would want to do that,” Fauci told The Atlantic about a White House document with misleading claims that Fauci had contradicted himself in his advice to the American public. “I think they realize now that that was not a prudent thing to do, because it’s only reflecting negatively on them.
Trump told reporters after the op-ed was published that Navarro “shouldn’t be doing that” and that “we’re all on the same team, including Dr. Fauci,” The New York Times reported.
More than 4.2 million coronavirus cases have been confirmed in the U.S. and more than 148,000 people have died as of July 28, according to Johns Hopkins University.
This story was originally published July 28, 2020 at 10:47 AM with the headline "‘I have not been misleading the American public.’ Fauci responds to viral Trump tweet."