Former President Donald Trump has returned fire against Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx, whom he had empowered under his administration to provide counsel on the COVID-19 response.
Recently, Dr. Birx suggested that hundreds of thousands of Americans may have needlessly died due to the Trump administration’s restrained response. In a CNN documentary that aired on Sunday, Fauci was also reported as saying that he was shocked by the way Trump had called on states to reopen.
Excerpts from Trump’s most recent statement is posted below.
“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 in the emailed statement.
“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.”
“Dr. Birx is a proven liar with very little credibility left,” Trump said. “Many of her recommendations were viewed as ‘pseudo-science’ and Dr. Fauci would also talk negatively about her and, in fact, would ask not to be in the same room with her. The states that followed her lead, like California, had worse outcomes on Covid, and ruined the lives of countless children because they couldn’t go back to school, ruined many businesses, and an untold number of Americans who were killed by the lockdowns themselves.”
“Dr. Fauci is also the king of ‘flip-flops’ and moving the goalposts to make himself look as good as possible,” Trump added. “He fought me so hard because he wanted to keep our country open to countries like China. I closed it against his strong recommendation, which saved many lives.”