News / Politics

White House targets Dr. Fauci, as coronavirus cases surge

Monday, 13 July 2020 3:15 PM [ Last Update: Monday, 13 July 2020 5:49 PM ]

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, adjusts a face covering during a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing in Washington, DC, June 30, 2020.(Photo by AFP)

The White House has targeted Anthony Fauci, the Trump administration's top infectious diseases expert, aiming to discredit him as coronavirus cases surge once more across the country.

A leaked White House memo targeting Fauci, who serves as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and is a member of the White House coronavirus task force,was reported by multiple news outlets on Monday.

The leaked memo cites nearly a dozen comments made by the nation’s top infectious diseases expert about how the COVID-19 pandemic would unfold.

The document claims that “several White House officials are concerned about the number of times Dr. Fauci has been wrong on things,” according to ABC News.

The White House effort to undermine Fauci, comes as US President Donald Trump is downplaying the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump says he disagrees with Fauci on COVID-19 in US

US President Trump says he disagrees with Dr. Fauci on his assessment of the dire situation the United States faces.

Trump has publicly made comments criticizing Fauci.

Last week, the president said in an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity that Fauci “has made a lot of mistakes.”

Fauci, along with other members of the White House coronavirus force, has been making increasingly fewer appearances on major network television. Fauci told the Financial Times in an interview published last week that his reputation for “speaking the truth” may be a reason why.

“I have a reputation, as you probably have figured out, of speaking the truth at all times and not sugar-coating things. And that may be one of the reasons why I haven’t been on television very much lately,” Fauci said.

He also told the Financial Times that he hasn’t seen the president in person since early June.

Fauci,in the same interview, contradicted Trump’s claim, which is not backed by evidence, that 99 percent of coronavirus cases were “totally harmless.” The expert in this field said that was “obviously not” true.

In the US, more than 3.3 million coronavirus cases and 135,205 deaths have been reported, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Based on the Johns Hopkins database, the number of cases were still increasing in most states across the US.

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