President Donald Trump on Wednesday weighed on White House Director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy Peter Navarro’s opinion-editorial slamming Dr. Anthony Fauci, stating: “He shouldn’t be doing that.”
“We are all on the same team,” President Trump told reporters when asked about Navarro’s criticism of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director. “We want to get rid of this mess that China sent us. So everybody is working in the same line and we are doing very well”
“[Navarro] made a statement representing himself. He shouldn’t be doing that,” he added.
In a Wednesday op-ed for USA Today, Navarro wrote, “Fauci has been wrong about everything I have interacted with him on.”
“[W]hen you ask me whether I listen to Dr. Fauci’s advice, my answer is: only with skepticism and caution,” Navarro wrote. “Fauci fought against the president’s courageous decision — which might well have saved hundreds of thousands of American lives.”
Navarro noted that Fauci told reporters in January “not to worry” about a potential pandemic, branding the threat as “low risk.”
“When we were building new mask capacity in record time, Fauci was flip-flopping on the use of masks,” he wrote, referring to the doctor’s recommendation not to wear masks at the beginning of the pandemic.
“Now Fauci says a falling mortality rate doesn’t matter when it is the single most important statistic to help guide the pace of our economic reopening,” he added. “The lower the mortality rate, the faster and more we can open.”
President Trump said Friday that he has a good relationship with Fauci, despite not always agreeing with the infectious disease expert.
“Dr. Fauci is a nice man, but he’s made a lot of mistakes,” Trump told Fox News Channel host Sean Hannity.
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