The president made the comments during a call with his campaign staff on Monday morning that reporters got on.
“People are saying whatever. Just leave us alone. They’re tired of it. People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots…” Trump said, according to Politico.
Despite slamming the coronavirus expert, the president went on to say “Fauci is a nice guy” before saying “he’s been here for 500 years.” During the call, Trump also insisted that if he had listened to Fauci’s advice there would be “700,000, 800,000 deaths.” America has suffered at least 220,000 deaths from the coronavirus. Trump also called Fauci a “disaster,” who is a “bomb” when he goes on TV, but a “bigger bomb if you fire him.” “If there’s a reporter on, you can have it just the way I said it. I couldn’t care less,” the president said following the heated comments. Shortly after the phone call, Trump took to Twitter to complain about the doctor. “Dr.Tony Fauci says we don’t allow him to do television, and yet I saw him last night on @60Minutes, and he seems to get more airtime than anybody since the late, great, Bob Hope. All I ask of Tony is that he make better decisions. He said “no masks & let China in”. Also, Bad arm! “…P.S. Tony should stop wearing the Washington Nationals’ Mask for two reasons. Number one, it is not up to the high standards that he should be exposing. Number two, it keeps reminding me that Tony threw out perhaps the worst first pitch in the history of Baseball!” The president and the doctor have appeared to be feuding in recent weeks since Trump was diagnosed with Covid. On Saturday, Fauci revealed that he was “absolutely not surprised” by the diagnosis. Fauci said “oh my goodness,” when he saw the lack of masks and social distancing during a “superspreader event” at the White House. At least ten people in Trump’s inner circle became infected with coronavirus following the event, which was held to officially nominate his Supreme Court pick Judge Amy Coney Barrett. The doctor called the event “a completely precarious situation” and said he was “worried” that the president would become sick after seeing the event. “Nothing good can come out of that,” Fauci said. “That’s got to be a problem — and then sure enough it turned out to be a super spreader event.” Now, 34 people in Trump’s orbit are known to have become infected since the event, according to a leaked FEMA tally.