It is no secret that Donald Trump and Dr. Anthony Fauci do not agree on many things, particularly the handling of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. On Monday, Trump once again took shots at the nation’s top health expert during a campaign call, referring to him as an “idiot” and undermining his efforts to slow the spread of the deadly virus.
The unhinged president did not make an attempt to censor himself despite reporters possibly being on the call.
“If there’s a reporter on, you can have it just the way I said it. I couldn’t care less,” Trump reassured.
This latest outburst comes after Fauci appeared on “60 Minutes” Sunday and revealed that there has been a “restriction” on coronavirus updates from the White House. He also confessed that he had “not been allowed” to appear on many shows that requested an interview with him. The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984 said that he was not surprised that Trump contracted COVID-19 considering his nonchalant approach to the virus.
During Monday’s call, Trump can be heard saying that American citizens are tired of hearing about the coronavirus, which has claimed the lives of 215,000 U.S. citizens.
“People are tired of COVID. I have these huge rallies,” Trump ranted during the call, according to Politico. “People are saying whatever. Just leave us alone. They’re tired of it. People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots.”
“Fauci is a disaster. If I listened to him, we’d have 500,000 deaths,” Trump also alleged.
An advisor to Trump even called his comments “not smart” in lieu of the election being merely weeks away.
Meanwhile, as Trump was having a meltdown on the phone, Fauci was being honored with the National Academy of Medicine’s first-ever Presidential Citation for Exemplary Leadership during a virtual ceremony.
“We have a lot of challenges ahead of us and I can’t help thinking that we’re really going through a time that’s disturbingly anti-science in certain segments of our society,” Fauci said during his acceptance speech at the virtual event.
