Trump’s #FireFauci retweet triggers a cycle of outrage and a White House denial - POLITICO

A single weekend retweet from Donald Trump — as he’s done thousands of times during his presidency — kicked up a storm of outrage and concern about the president’s state of mind, his reliance on public health experts and his path ahead for digging the nation out of a coronavirus shutdown.

Trump on Sunday evening retweeted a former GOP congressional candidate's criticism of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and perhaps the most prominent public health official on the White House's coronavirus task force. The pointed social media post was punctuated with the hashtag #FireFauci, sparking speculation that the doctor might soon be dismissed.

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"Fauci is now saying that had Trump listened to the medical experts earlier he could've saved more lives. Fauci was telling people on February 29th that there was nothing to worry about and it posed no threat to the US public at large. Time to #FireFauci," former Congressional candidate DeAnna Lorraine wrote on Twitter. Trump, in sharing Lorraine's post, added "Sorry Fake News, it’s all on tape. I banned China long before people spoke up."

The president's retweet triggered tens of thousands of tweets throughout Monday morning with the #FireFauci hashtag, generating worries even from lawmakers and supporters. Fauci has an approval rating of nearly 80% among Republicans, a sign of rare bipartisan credibility during a global crisis that has shut down the economy and scrambled an election year.

By Monday afternoon, the White House issued a statement blaming the media for the speculation that Trump ignited over the weekend.

“This media chatter is ridiculous – President Trump is not firing Dr. Fauci. The President’s tweet clearly exposed media attempts to maliciously push a falsehood about his China decision in an attempt to rewrite history," White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said in a statement. "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. Dr. Fauci has been and remains a trusted advisor to President Trump.”

Fauci is expected to be in attendance Monday at the White House's daily coronavirus press briefing, a person close to the president told POLITICO, where the doctor intends to set the record straight about his relationship with Trump and his opinion on when it is safe to lift coronavirus stay-at-home orders that have shuttered much of the U.S. economy.

A person familiar with the White House coronavirus task force's discussions noted that the group did not meet over the Easter weekend, when Trump's tweet first sparked talk that Fauci's ouster could be coming. The person said that "at end of the day, the only person's reaction that matters is the president's" when it comes to conservative criticism of Fauci and that the president is unlikely to remove the doctor anytime soon.

"Remember this isn't the first time that the president has disagreed directionally with some of the comments of Dr. Fauci. I doubt it will be the last," the person said. "We're in a situation of the type which we haven't seen before, so I can't judge the personalities, so maybe the president goes half-cocked and says 'let's get rid of Fauci' but he hasn't done it yet and I don't think it's likely to happen in the near future."

The relationship between Fauci, the cautious doctor wary of making bold pronouncements, and a hyperbole-prone president grasping for solutions has been the subject of much speculation since the nation's coronavirus response ramped up in earnest last month. Fauci has at times appeared to contradict the president, tamping down talk of a quick cure or a rapid reopening of the nation. But he has also seemingly sought to mostly stay in line behind the president, especially at the White House's daily briefings, where reporters often ask Fauci to weigh in on the president's plans and predictions.

Perhaps the biggest break between Fauci and Trump came over the weekend amid a flurry of reporting that the White House failed to heed early warnings about the spread of coronavirus overseas. The doctor conceded in an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper that "if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives."

That schism and others, however slight, have made Fauci a target for Trump's allies in conservative media circles that value lockstep loyalty to the president. But that animosity has yet to trickle down to GOP voters, with whom Fauci enjoys an approval rating well above that of the president, nor has it spread widely among Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

"Tony Fauci is one of the finest physicians and Americans you will ever meet. I've known him for over a dozen years, his wife was in my college class at Georgetown, she was a nursing student when I was pre-med, I have all the faith in the world in Tony Fauci," Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said. "He's gotten the Medal of Freedom. I don't know who gave it to him, but Obama or Bush or somebody gave him the Medal of Freedom already. I said, 'you ought to get the medal of freedom.' Well guess what? He already has it!"

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) noted that "any president gets to pick the people he wants around him" but went on to say that "I don't know why he would get rid of Fauci" and "my experience has been positive with him." Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) said Fauci's voice is important for the president to hear, but so are others who might shed light on the economic costs of continuing to keep wide swaths of the U.S. economy close.

"I think Anthony Fauci has provided a very, very valuable service in helping Americans to understand the nature of this disease, the nature of how it spreads, the nature of the risks that we face. But we also need to hear from people who understand that life is a series of choices," Toomey said. "An epidemiologist provides a very very important perspective that we should listen to and think about, but we also need to understand from economists and other people about the downside of continuing in this mode where the economy is closed."

- Daniel Lippman and Burgess Everett contributed to this report.

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Trump’s #FireFauci retweet triggers a cycle of outrage and a White House denial - POLITICO
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