Fauci says Trump ad used his comments on the pandemic response ‘out of context’
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert in the U.S., said a new advertisement from President Donald Trump’s campaign used his words out of context.
The video, called “Carefully,” was posted Saturday to YouTube and touts Trump’s leadership during the coronavirus pandemic and his personal recovery from COVID-19. It includes a clip of Fauci saying “I can’t imagine that anybody could be doing more.”
But in a response first reported by CNN, Fauci said the ad took his comments “out of context.”
“In my nearly five decades of public service, I have never publicly endorsed any political candidate,” Fauci said in the statement also obtained by ABC News. “The comments attributed to me without my permission in the GOP campaign ad were taken out of context from a broad statement I made months ago about the efforts of federal public health officials.”
The clip was pulled from a Fox News interview in March during which Fauci praised a “coordinated response” to the pandemic from the federal government — not specifically Trump’s response.
“Since the beginning that we even recognized what this was, I have been devoting almost full time on this,” Fauci said during the interview. “I’m down at the White House virtually every day with the task force. I’m connected by phone throughout the day and into the night — when I say night I’m talking 12, 1, 2 in the morning. I’m not the only one. There’s a whole group of us that are doing that. It’s every single day. So I can’t imagine that under any circumstances that anybody could be doing more.”
Despite Fauci’s objections to the ad, the Trump campaign told NBC News it will continue to run.
“These are Dr. Fauci’s own words,” Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said in a statement. “The video is from a nationally broadcast television interview in which Dr. Fauci was praising the work of the Trump Administration. The words spoken are accurate, and directly from Dr. Fauci’s mouth.”
The president echoed Murtaugh’s statement in a tweet Sunday.
Trump has been at odds with health experts for months. He has repeatedly downplayed the danger of the virus, telling Americans not to be afraid of it and comparing it to the flu. He has also questioned the effectiveness of face masks while health experts urge the public to wear them.
Last month, Trump said he disagreed with Dr. Robert Redfield, chief of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who said face masks may be a more effective defense against the virus than a vaccine, McClatchy News previously reported.
The day before Redfield’s comments, the president said during an ABC News town hall that “a lot of people” don’t want to wear masks and “think they’re not good.”
Trump has also clashed with experts over a COVID-19 vaccine.
In September he told reporters that Redfield was “confused” when he outlined a vaccine timeline that Trump didn’t agree with.
This story was originally published October 12, 2020 at 10:16 AM with the headline "Fauci says Trump ad used his comments on the pandemic response ‘out of context’."
