President Donald Trump sparked speculations about Dr. Anthony Fauci's future on Sunday as he retweeted a conservative who demanded the top infectious disease specialist should be fired after he admitted in a CNN interview that the spread of coronavirus could have been restricted if more actions were taken.
Some of Trump's accomplices in conservative media continue to criticize Fauci, leading to speculations about the president been displeased with the key member of his coronavirus task force. Americans have been criticizing Trump for the way he initially handled the situation and ignored several warnings by health officials before finally taking decisive actions such as social distancing measures.
Trump accused his administration of being slow to responding and is planning to reopen the economy potentially by the beginning of next month, ignoring health officials' warnings that doing so could lead to a second and deadlier wave of the infection. While talking to CNN's Jake Tapper, Fauci noted that mitigation efforts could have been more effective if they implemented earlier.
Aside from that, he said it is important to be cautious while deciding to reopen the nation, although Trump insists on quickly restarting the economy. If the administration started mitigation earlier, more lives could have been saved, he said on "State of the Union" when asked whether or not measures such as stay-at-home and social distancing could have played vital roles in preventing deaths if they were put in place in Feb, rather than in mid-March.
The most important member of the president's coronavirus task force, Fauci noted that if everything was shut down right from the very beginning, things may have been a little bit different. Regrettably, the plans to shut things down faced a lot of criticism back then.
Following the aforesaid interview, former Congressional Candidate DeAnna Lorraine tweeted it was "Time to #FireFauci" and lauded Trump's decision to place restrictions on traveling to China in early Feb. Interestingly, the POTUS retweeted her post with a message saying he banned China long before people spoke up, adding that its all on tape.
On Monday, Trump rebuffed the idea of firing Fauci. During a daily White House briefing, he said he is not firing him as he is a wonderful guy. Responding to his retweet, the president said it didn't matter and called it someone else's opinion, although he did notice the fire Fauci hashtag before retweeting it.
"Not everybody's happy with Anthony," Trump explained, adding that not everybody is happy with everybody. Nevertheless, he pointed out that the Trump administration has done a job that nobody else has ever done.