President Trump’s long-fraught relationship with Anthony S. Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-disease specialist, ruptured again this week in an ugly public dispute just as U.S. coronavirus cases have ticked past 50,000 per day and with three weeks left in a campaign dominated by the government’s response to the pandemic.
Trump on Tuesday responded to Fauci’s warnings that the president’s decision to resume campaign rallies this week was “very troublesome” by mocking him in a tweet that unfavorably compared his medical guidance to his errant ceremonial first pitch at a Washington Nationals game in July.
“Actually, Tony’s pitching arm is far more accurate than his prognostications,” Trump wrote, erroneously suggesting that Fauci’s advice in the early days of the pandemic that the public need not wear masks meant that the doctor was playing down the novel coronavirus. Continue reading.