The White House blasted Dr. Anthony Fauci in a statement late Saturday after the federal health expert criticized White House health adviser Scott Atlas and said the U.S. was “in for a world of hurt” from the pandemic in the winter.
Fauci spoke to The Washington Post on Friday and said that the U.S. government was unprepared to do what it should to mitigate the impact of the coronavirus during the fall and winter. Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and had a heavy influence in shaping the U.S. response to the pandemic early on.
“We’re in for a whole lot of hurt. It’s not a good situation,” Fauci said, according to The Washington Post. “All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly.”
Fauci also criticized White House adviser Scott Atlas, a relatively new member of the White House team responding to the coronavirus. Atlas has warned against further shutdowns of the economy, asserting that such strict measures take their own toll on the public’s health.
“I have real problems with that guy,” Fauci said of Atlas. “He’s a smart guy who’s talking about things that I believe he doesn’t have any real insight or knowledge or experience in. He keeps talking about things that when you dissect it out and parse it out, it doesn’t make any sense.”
White House spokesman Judd Deere released a response to Fauci’s interview in a statement on Saturday, calling the doctor’s comments “unacceptable and breaking with all norms,” according to the New York Post.
“Dr. Fauci has a duty to express concerns or push for a change in strategy, but he’s not done that, instead choosing to criticize the President in the media and make his political leanings known by praising the President’s opponent,” Deere said. “Dr. Fauci knows that the risks today are dramatically lower than they were only a few months ago with mortality rates falling over 80 percent.”
At a rally over the weekend, President Trump suggested that he may fire Fauci after the election is over. As The Daily Wire reported:
During the Miami rally that appeared to continue until around 1 a.m. Monday morning, Trump ripped on network media, accusing pundits and reporters of using the pandemic as a political issue and predicting coronavirus would become less of a discussion topic the day after the election.
“You turn on the news, ‘COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID. We’d like to talk about COVID,’ and then next story. Here’s what happens Nov. 4 – you won’t hear too much about it. You won’t hear too much about it,” Trump said.
Trump’s talk of the coronavirus led some in the audience to call for him to fire Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Fauci, apparently an unpopular man among Trump supporters at the president’s Miami rally, was a major influence on the president’s early approach to the coronavirus, and the doctor has continued to advocate for restrictive measures to slow the spread of the virus.
A man in the crowd can be heard yelling “Fire Fauci!” Many more soon take up the call and Trump is surrounded by chants of “Fire Fauci, fire Fauci.”
“Don’t tell anybody, but let me wait until a little bit after the election. I appreciate the advice. I appreciate it. Nah, he’s been wrong on a lot. He’s a nice man, though. He’s been wrong on a lot,” Trump said.