Donald Trump Goes After Dr. Fauci on Twitter

President Donald Trump has some choice words for Dr. Anthony Fauci. According to TMZ, Trump issued a negative statement about Fauci’s ability to navigate the COVID-19 crisis. The news not only comes a little over a week after Trump tested positive for COVID-19, but it also comes amid months of the president trying to downplay the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump aimed Fauci shortly after the doctor voiced his concerns with the president’s campaign releasing an ad that falsely made it look like he was praising Trump’s response to the COVID-19 crisis. (He was actually praising the Coronavirus Task Force and public health officials for their response to the pandemic.) As a result, the president took to Twitter to comment about Fauci’s pitching abilities (the doctor made headlines in July for the ceremonial first pitch he threw during Major League Baseball’s opening day). On Twitter, Trump wrote that Fauci’s pitching abilities are “more accurate than his prognostications.” He also said that the World Health Organization (WHO) just came out against lockdowns and that, in the end, he was right with his approach. He also claims that they saved 2 million American lives.

It should be noted that while WHO did caution against the use of lockdowns as the “primary control method,” they did not say that lockdowns could not be used in certain circumstances amidst the ongoing pandemic. “We in the World Health Organisation do not advocate lockdowns as the primary means of control of this virus,” Dr. David Nabarro, a WHO envoy, said, per The Sun. “The only time we believe a lockdown is justified is to buy you time to reorganise, regroup, rebalance your resources, protect your health workers who are exhausted, but by and large, we’d rather not do it.”

As previously mentioned, the president’s latest tweet comes after his campaign published an ad in which they falsely showcased Fauci praising Trump for his response to the COVID-19 crisis. In reality, his positive statement was about the Coronavirus Task Force and various public health officials who have been navigating this pandemic. In a statement, Fauci told CNN about this matter, “In my nearly five decades of public service, I have never publicly endorsed any political candidate. The comments attributed to me without my permission in the GOP campaign ad were taken out of context from a broad statement I made months ago about the efforts of federal public health officials.”