A White House spokesperson has offered up an astonishingly false claim in his statement claiming the President is not going to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci.
After President Donald Trump retweeted a post on Sunday that called for the firing of Dr. Anthony Fauci, possibly the most respected coronavirus expert working in the federal government, many have been increasingly fearful of the President’s whims.
An immunologist, Dr. Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a role he has held since 1984.
But it wasn’t only Trump’s tweet that has many concerned. After all, Fauci seems to be one of the few, if not the only scientist who has been able to sway Trump’s poor impulses. He’s credited with getting the president to drop his call for re-opening the nation by Easter.
Many are also concerned after Fauci in an interview said had the federal government reacted faster to the coronavirus pandemic lives would have been saved. That is in opposition to Trump’s very false claim he’s done a great job. He recently gave himself a “10” in how he’s managed to crisis.
White House Deputy Spokesperson Hogan Gidley tried to tamp down the chatter – while ramping up the partisan rhetoric.
“This media chatter is ridiculous — President Trump is not firing Dr. Fauci,” Gidley said. “Dr. Fauci has been and remains a trusted advisor to President Trump.”
But sandwiched between those two sentences is this astonishing lie:
“It was Democrats and the media who ignored Coronavirus choosing to focus on impeachment instead, and when they finally did comment on the virus it was to attack President Trump for taking the bold decisive action to save American lives by cutting off travel from China and from Europe.”
Democrats and the media did not ignore the coronavirus. In fact, that is a lie straight out of right wing provocateur Ben Shapiro’s playbook.
For example, here is a letter dated Feb. 13 and signed by 27 Democratic U.S. Senators, urging the White House to take action.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren had a plan out on January 28. (Trump has no plan.)
Many, many other Democrats have been sounding the alarm early on. Like, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT):