WASHINGTON, Apr 14 (NNN-AGENCIES) – The White House said, Trump is not firing the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, Anthony Fauci.
“This media chatter is ridiculous,” White House deputy press secretary, Hogan Gidley, said. “Dr. Fauci has been and remains a trusted adviser to President Trump.”
The statement came after Trump retweeted a post on Sunday night, containing the hashtag “#FireFauci.”
Fauci, who is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, faces criticism from conservatives, after he said more lives could have been saved, if stay-at-home measures were implemented earlier.
A key member of the administration’s COVID-19 task force, Fauci told reporters in the White House briefing on Monday that, he was responding to a “hypothetical question” during the interview.
The expert claimed, his response “was taken as a way that maybe somehow, something was at fault here,” and said, his remark about “push-back” inside the administration, to some of his recommendations on shutting the nation down at the end of Feb was a “poor choice of words.”
Trump, shrugging off the retweet on Monday, said in the briefing, he “retweeted somebody,” adding “it doesn’t matter.”
As the administration has been scrutinised for downplaying the threat from the virus early on and faulted for delays in testing, Trump and his allies are mounting an aggressive defence.
During Monday’s briefing, Trump aired a campaign-style clip that highlighted measures he has taken, to combat the virus and governors’ praise for his actions.
The United States reported over 581,000 confirmed cases and over 23,000 deaths, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University on Monday.– NNN-AGENCIES
