Trump goes after Fauci, tries to buck up his campaign team
U.S. President Donald Trump came out swinging Monday at Dr. Anthony Fauci, the press and polls that show him trailing Democrat Joe Biden in key battleground states in a disjointed closing message two weeks out from election day
On the third day of a western campaign swing, Trump was facing intense pressure to turn around his campaign, hoping for the type of last-minute surge that gave him a comefrom-behind victory four years ago. But his inconsistent message, the newly rising virus cases and his attacks on experts like Fauci could undermine his final efforts to appeal to voters outside his most loyal base.
Still Trump insisted he was confident as he executed an aggressive travel schedule despite the pandemic.
“We’re going to win,” he told campaign staff on a morning conference call from Las Vegas.
Seeking to shore up the morale of his staff, Trump blasted his government’s own scientific experts as too negative, even as his handling of the pandemic that has killed nearly 220,000 Americans remains a central issue to voters.
“People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots,” Trump said of the government’s top infectious disease expert. “Every time he goes on television, there’s always a bomb. But there’s a bigger bomb if you fire him. But Fauci’s a disaster.”
A this rally, Trump also ramped up his attacks on the news media, singling out NBC’s Kristen Welker, the moderator of the next presidential debate, as well as CNN for aggressively covering a pandemic that is now infecting tens of thousands of Americans every day.
Trump’s comments drew a defence of Fauci from Tennessee GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander, who praised the doctor as one of the nation’s “most distinguished public servants.” As Trump turned his flouting of scientific advice into a campaign applause line, Alexander added that, if more Americans had heeded Fauci’s advice, “we’d have fewer cases of COVID-19, and it would be safer to go back to school and back to work.”
Biden was off the campaign trail on Monday ahead of Thursday’s final debate.