On Sunday evening, Donald Trump took to Twitter to retweet a user who called for Dr. Anthony Fauci to be fired. This is the latest in a string of signs that suggest there is tension between the two figures in regards to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The tweet in question, which was originally posted by DeAnna Lorraine - a Republican candidate for Congress running for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's seat - appeared to be in response to the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases' comments on CNN on Sunday Morning.
Watch as President Trump berates a NBC news reporter:When CNN's State of the Union host, Jake Tapper, asked Fauci whether the US should have responded to the crisis quicker, he agreed, but did not overtly criticize the President. "I mean, obviously, you could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives. Obviously, no one is going to deny that. But what goes into those kinds of decisions is complicated," he said.
Lorraine then tweeted: "Fauci is now saying that had Trump listened to the medical experts earlier he could've saved more lives,” the tweet Trump retweeted from Fauci was telling people on February 29th that there was nothing to worry about and it posed no threat to the US public at large. Time to #FireFauci".
Trump retweeted Lorraine’s comment, adding “Sorry Fake News, it’s all on tape. I banned China long before people spoke up. Thank you @OANN.”
Per Forbes, Fauci has become one of the nation's most respected and trusted advisors during the pandemic, having appeared on television many times to update the country on the state of the outbreak. According to an April 8th Quinnipiac poll, 78 percent of the country approved of Fauci's handling, with just seven percent disapproving.