#Trump calls Anthony Fauci a ‘bit of an alarmist’ amid COVID-19 pandemic

President Trump called Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert and White House coronavirus task force, a “bit of an alarmist.”

“Well, I don’t know that he’s a leaker,” Trump told host Chris Wallace in an interview that aired on “Fox News Sunday.”

Fauci became the focus of attacks last week by White House officials — Trade Representative Peter Navarro and aide Dan Scavino — questioning the decisions he made during the coronavirus pandemic and whether he’s leaking information to the media.

Trump was also asked about comments by Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that COVID-19 could make this coming fall and winter the “most difficult times that we’ve experienced in American public health.”

The president noted that some doctors have made mistakes during the handling of the virus, which has now killed more than 142,000 Americans.

“I don’t know and I don’t think he knows,” Trump said. “I don’t think anybody knows with this. This is a very tricky deal. Everybody thought this summer it would go away and it would come back in the fall. Well, when the summer came, they used to say the heat – the heat was good for it and it really knocks it out, remember? And then it might come back in the fall. So they got that one wrong.”