Wednesday, July 22, 2020

Dr. Anthony Fauci says he wasn’t invited to Tuesday’s White House coronavirus briefing

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC on April 29, 2020.
Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images

White House advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said he wasn’t invited to President Donald Trump’s press conference Tuesday on the coronavirus pandemic — the president’s first public briefing on the outbreak in months.

“I was not invited up to this point and I’m assuming I’m not going to be there,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in a CNN interview less than an hour before the 5 p.m. briefing was scheduled to start.

Trump and other administration officials have criticized Fauci’s advice on the pandemic in recent weeks, widening an apparent rift between the White House and its top infectious disease advisor who is a key member of the White House’s coronavirus task force.

In a scathing op-ed published last Tuesday, Trump’s trade advisor Peter Navarro criticized Fauci, saying he “has been wrong about everything I have interacted with him on.” Similarly, during an interview earlier this month with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, Trump said, “Dr. Fauci’s a nice man, but he’s made a lot of mistakes.”

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