President Donald Trump hasn’t attended a meeting with the White House coronavirus task force in “several months," according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Fauci, a White House coronavirus adviser, told MSNBC on Friday that the task force, which is led by Vice President Mike Pence, holds a virtual meeting once a week.
“We certainly interact with the vice president at the task force meetings, and the vice president makes our feelings and what we talk about there known to the president,” he said, when asked about the last time Trump attended a meeting with the task force.
Host Chuck Todd also asked Fauci about how often he briefs Trump, to which he said: “I definitely don’t have his ear as much as Scott Atlas right now. That has been a changing situation.”
Dr. Atlas recently came under fire for tweeting that masks don’t “work,” a claim that was removed by the social media platform for violating its policy against spreading misinformation about the coronavirus.
Trump has repeatedly criticized Fauci, and recently referred to him as “a disaster” during a call with campaign staff earlier this week.
Critics, particularly in the Joe Biden campaign, have made an election issue of Trump's response to the pandemic, deeming it scattershot and insufficiently grounded in science.
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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