Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases, testifies to a subcommittee of the House about the coronavirus crisis hearing on July 31, 2020 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Power.
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White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday that a new Trump campaign ad had “taken his comments out of context” and used his remarks without his consent.
“In my nearly five decades in the public service, I have not publicly endorsed, or now endorse, political candidates,” Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Diseases, said in a statement to NBC News.
“The comments attributed to me on the GOP campaign ad without my permission have been taken out of the context of a broad statement I made months ago about the efforts of federal health officials,” he added.
The announcement in support of the President Donald Trumps The re-election offer, titled “Carefully”, was published on Saturday and promotes the President’s management of the coronavirus pandemic.
The 30-second ad includes a clip by Fauci saying he couldn’t imagine anyone could do more to fight the pandemic that has now killed more than 210,000 Americans, according to Johns Hopkins University arrived.
The full extent of Fauci’s remarks made during a March interview Fauci showed in Fox’s “Life, Liberty and Levin” how the White House virus advisor spoke about the entire federal government’s response to Covid-19. Fauci did not directly praise the president, as the ad suggested.
Even so, the Trump campaign countered that the words were his own and that they came from a national television program.
“These are Dr. Fauci’s own words. The video was taken from a nationally broadcast television interview in which Dr. Fauci praised the work of the Trump administration. The words spoken are correct and straight from Dr. Fauci’s mouth,” said Tim Murtaugh. Trump’s 2020 communications director said in a statement.
“As Dr. Fauci recently testified in the Senate, President Trump took the virus seriously from the start, acted quickly and saved lives,” added Murtaugh.
Trump, who had an erratic relationship with the health advisor, may be trying to capitalize on Fauci’s popularity with voters and bring new life to his campaign.
The president has followed the Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, in national polls for months. Biden has expanded his lead over Trump in the last few weeks after the first presidential debate in late September and Trump’s Covid-19 diagnosis.
An average calculated by RealClearPolitics.com showed the spread between Biden and Trump rose from 6.8 percentage points before the debate to 9.8 percent on Sunday.
The president’s lagging polls also come as the U.S. reports more than 40,000 new coronavirus cases averaged over seven days. That rate could worsen as temperatures in the northern US cool, forcing people indoors. The US reported 57,420 new cases on Friday, the highest daily number in nearly two months.
Fauci told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell last week he doesn’t feel comfortable with it. I would like to see this level well below 10,000. “
“In certain parts of the country, like the Midwest and the Northwest, and even now, we’re starting to see little trouble in northeast New York. Then you start to worry because it’s harder to deal with respiratory viruses such as airborne viruses People are going inside more, “he said on Thursday. “And if you’re starting to see upticks like we see it and you have a baseline of 40,000 and you get stuck at 40,000, this is not the optimal position when you step into fall and winter.”
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This article originally appeared on www.cnbc.com
