Former President Donald Trump harshly criticized Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx — both who led his White House Coronavirus Taskforce — for “trying to reinvent history” in their criticisms of his administration’s handling of the pandemic.
Fauci and Birx were interviewed by CNN for a special titled “COVID WAR: The Pandemic Doctors Speak Out,” this week, which prompted Trump to speak out.
In the interview, Fauci seemed to take credit for Operation Warp Speed, the program launched by the Trump administration to develop coronavirus vaccines quickly, and said pushing the administration to develop a COVID-19 vaccine was “the best decision that I’ve ever made with regard to an intervention as director of the institute.”
And Birx told CNN Trump was “very difficult” towards her after she rebuffed some of his points during a press briefing in late August.
In a statement, Trump accused both of his former advisers of being “self-promoters.”
“Based on their interviews, I felt it was time to speak up about Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx, two self-promoters trying to reinvent history to cover for their bad instincts and faulty recommendations, which I fortunately almost always overturned,” Trump said. “They had bad policy decisions that would have left our country open to China and others, closed to reopening our economy, and years away from an approved vaccine—putting millions of lives at risk.”
Contrary to what Fauci claimed, both of the medical experts “moved far too slowly” on vaccine development, Trump said, and Birx touted strict measures that would leave Americans “locked in our basements.”
“Dr. Fauci was incapable of pressing the FDA to move it through faster. I was the one to get it done, and even the fake news media knows and reports this,” Trump said. “Dr. Fauci is also the king of ‘flip-flops’ and moving the goalposts to make himself look as good as possible.”
Birx is a “proven liar with very little credibility left,” Trump added.
“Many of her recommendations were viewed as ‘pseudo-science,’ and Dr. Fauci would always talk negatively about her and, in fact, would ask not to be in the same room with her,” he continued. “She was a very negative voice who didn’t have the right answers. Time has proven me correct. I only kept Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx on because they worked for the U.S. government for so long—they are like a bad habit!”
