WASHINGTON, D.C. — Donald Trump complained to his campaign staff about the government’s top infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, including him among people he considers “idiots,” but said he couldn’t fire him because of public perception.
“People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots,” Trump said Monday in a call intended to boost morale at a campaign running well behind his challenger, Joe Biden. Trump’s campaign invited reporters to listen in.
“Anytime he goes on television” there’s a “bomb,” Trump told his staff, adding that if he fired Fauci it would be a “bigger bomb.”
He claimed without substantiation that “if we listened to him” there would be 700,000 to 800,000 American deaths. More than 220,000 Americans have died so far from the coronavirus.
After disparaging Fauci, Trump remarked that he didn’t care whether reporters were on the call.
Trump has previously said he accepted Fauci’s recommendations while fighting the pandemic. But Fauci is a strong proponent of public use of face masks, a precaution the president hasn’t followed himself and has discouraged among his staff.
Trump’s comments came after Fauci appeared Sunday on the CBS program “60 Minutes” and said he wasn’t surprised the president contracted COVID-19. “I was worried that he was going to get sick when I saw him in a completely precarious situation of crowded, no separation between people, and almost nobody wearing a mask,” Fauci said.
The president’s campaign has aired television ads that take remarks by Fauci out of context to suggest he’s complimented Trump’s response to the pandemic. Fauci has publicly objected, saying he’s always been publicly nonpartisan, and he’s urged Trump’s campaign to pull the ad.
Trump’s closest medical adviser is now Scott Atlas — a neuroradiologist with no epidemiology expertise affiliated with the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University — who came to the president’s attention with frequent appearances on Fox News.
The Washington Post reported Monday that Atlas has repeatedly sparred with Fauci and Deborah Birx, an epidemiologist who is the White House coronavirus task force coordinator.
Trump also said on the conference call with campaign staff that he was unsure he would win reelection until recently.
“We’re going to win. I wouldn’t have told you that maybe two or three weeks ago,” he said.
The president’s declaration follows a collapse in his support in public opinion polls since his first debate with Joe Biden and his hospitalization for COVID-19. A 6-point average lead for Biden at the end of September has grown to about 9 points as of Monday, according to RealClearPolitics.
The former vice president also leads in polls of many battleground states, albeit by narrower margins.
Trump singled out a Michigan poll last week by a Republican firm, Trafalgar, that showed him ahead in the state — an outlier among Michigan polls — and asked his campaign manager, Bill Stepien, “are we still up, Bill, or what?”
Stepien replied that Trump is ahead of where Democrats want him to be.
“As of today this is the single best I have ever been in any campaign,” Trump said. “The first one I was losing until the last day.”
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