Dr. Fauci was 'absolutely not' surprised that Trump got COVID-19

Yahoo Entertainment
Updated

During an interview with “60 Minutes,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said he knew the White House Rose Garden event to announce Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination was bad news when he saw it on TV. The event on Sept. 26 was crowded with no social distancing and very few masks, so Fauci said he was not at all surprised when President Trump tested positive for COVID-19 soon after, as have dozens of administration officials, many of whom attended the Rose Garden event, which Fauci called a “superspreader event.” Fauci has recently criticized Trump’s rallies for the same reasons he thought the Rose Garden event was a bad idea, and on Sunday, he contradicted a claim Trump repeatedly makes at those rallies, that we’re “rounding the corner” in the fight against COVID-19. “When you have a million deaths and over 30 million infections globally,” Fauci said, “you cannot say that we’re on the road to essentially getting out of this.”

Video Transcript

- Were you surprised that President Trump got sick?

ANTHONY FAUCI: Absolutely not. I was worried that he was going to get sick when I saw him in a completely precarious situation of crowded, no separation between people, and almost nobody wearing a mask.

- Dr. Anthony Fauci appeared on 60 Minutes Sunday, where he addressed President Trump's contraction of COVID-19. Dozens of administration officials have also tested positive for COVID-19, many of whom attended the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett in the White House Rose Garden. Fauci said he immediately knew that the event was bad news.

ANTHONY FAUCI: When I saw that on TV, I said, oh my goodness. Nothing good can come out of that. That's got to be a problem. And then sure enough, it turned out to be a super spreader event.

- Fauci also contradicted Trump's assertion that we're almost out of the coronavirus pandemic.

ANTHONY FAUCI: When you have a million deaths and over 30 million infections globally, you cannot say that we're on the road to essentially getting out of this. So quite frankly, I don't know where we are. It's impossible to say.