Anthony Fauci said he had “never publicly endorsed any political candidate” in his career (File)
Washington:
Senior government scientist Anthony Fauci said on Sunday that an advertisement circulated by Donald Trump’s re-election campaign had been edited to make him appear to approve of the president’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
“In my nearly five decades of public service, I have never publicly supported any political candidate,” Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a statement sent to AFP.
The 30-second ad campaign cites Trump’s personal experience with the virus – “President Trump is recovering from the coronavirus, so is America,” he says – before including a brief clip in which Fauci appears to praise the President’s response to the pandemic.
“I can’t imagine anyone who could do more,” Fauci said, making it clear that he is referring to Trump.
But a full snippet of Fauci’s comments, made in a March interview with Fox News, shows the doctor saying, “I spend most of my time on this. I’m in the White House pretty much every day. with the working group. It’s everyday. So I can’t imagine that under any circumstance anyone could do more. “
In his Sunday statement, Fauci said: “The comments attributed to me without my permission in the GOP campaign announcement were taken out of context from a general statement I made there. months ago on the efforts of federal public health officials. “
As a prominent member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, the 79-year-old doctor has often had to walk a fine line in an attempt to clarify – or correct – the president’s often reckless claims about the disease or illnesses. treatments. and vaccines under development against Covid-19.
Fauci has occasionally aroused Trump’s ire, such as when the president retweeted a post with the hashtag #FireFauci in April – before publicly insisting that the doctor was doing a great job.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
