Fauci says Trump never asked him to slow down coronavirus testing
At a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Tuesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci said President Trump never asked him to slow down coronavirus testing in the U.S. The other panel witnesses — CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield, FDA Director Dr. Stephen Hahn and Assistant Health Secretary Adm. Brett Giroir — echoed Fauci's claim.
Video Transcript
- All right, now I'm going to have to ask about the president, because you talked about testing and how important it is. And I-- you know, Admiral Giroir and I know how important it is. At his rally over the weekend, the president said, and I quote, "When you do testing to that extent, you're going to find more people, you're going to find more cases. So I said to my people, slow the testing down, please," unquote.
And this morning, he said he meant this. So Dr. Fauci, do you agree with that? Does it make sense that to safely open our economy, we should be limiting the number of tests, rather than ensuring that anyone who needs a test can get one? And you don't have to mention the president. I did. But tell us about the testing.
ANTHONY FAUCI: [INAUDIBLE]
- Your microphone is on?
ANTHONY FAUCI: I, as a member of the task force, and my colleagues on the task force, to my knowledge-- I know for sure-- but to my knowledge, none of us have ever been told to slow down on testing. That just is a fact.
In fact, we will be doing more testing, as you've heard from Admiral Giroir, not only testing to specifically identify people in the identify, isolate, and contact trace, but also much more surveillance if you want to get your arms around and understand exactly what's going on in community spread. So it's the opposite. We're going to be doing more testing, not less.
- Has President Trump ever directed you to slow down testing for COVID-19 in the United States? Dr. Redfield?
ROBERT REDFIELD: No, no, sir. No, Congressman.
-Thank you.
