President Trump was returning Monday to his favorite political activity — egging on his most fervent supporters — starting with a big rally in Florida.
This comes as the Trump’s campaign appears to have finally shattered the long-running determination of Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. expert on infectious diseases, to avoid public conflict with the president.
Fauci is clearly livid over a new Trump campaign ad that manipulates a video clip to make it appear that Fauci praised the president’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Washington Post columnist Greg Sargent calls it a “final insult to the American electorate.”
To support its lie that the U.S. is “recovering” from the pandemic thanks to Trump’s leadership, the ad features Fauci saying: “I can’t imagine that anybody could be doing more.”
“But that Fauci footage is ripped out of context to make it appear as if he were referring to Trump,” Sargent writes, noting that “it actually comes from an interview in which Fauci praised the dedication of the coronavirus task force, not Trump.” That Fox News interview was on March 22.
“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.”
Strong words indeed for the normally soft-spoken Fauci, especially when aimed at the President of the United States, who can fire him at any time.
For his part, Trump continues to disdain wearing a mask, which Fauci and other experts have repeatedly said is the best protection currently available from spreading the coronavirus — and probably will remain so until an effective vaccine is proven safe for use by the general public. And on Tuesday morning, Trump fired back at Fauci.
Trump himself is still recovering from a Covid infection that put him in the hospital for three days, yet he stoked the fury of his “base” at rallies Monday night in Florida and later this week in Pennsylvania and Iowa. Experts fear all three of those events will become “superspreaders” of the coronavirus.
Neither the White House nor the Trump campaign has indicated that heightened safety rules will be imposed during these trips, either at the rallies or aboard Air Force One, the Associated Press reports.
The Johns Hopkins Covid-19 Tracker said that as of Monday afternoon, there have been well over 750,000 positive tests for the Covid-19 coronavirus in the U.S., and almost 219,000 Americans have died. Trump still insists it will soon “disappear.”
