Former President Donald Trump slammed Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx on Tuesday for their handling of the coronavirus pandemic in its early days.
Trump joined host Maria Bartiromo by phone during her broadcast of “Fox News Primetime” and discussed how his administration addressed the pandemic at its start, as well as how Fauci and Birx “made nothing but mistakes” in the advice they gave him. (RELATED: Dr. Fauci Blasts Trump’s Rhetoric Throughout The Coronavirus Pandemic)
Bartiromo began by mentioning President Joe Biden’s primetime address on Mar. 11, in which he claimed the coronavirus was “met with silence for days, and weeks, and then months.” She noted that he made no mention of Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s partnership with private companies to quickly develop and distribute a vaccine. She then asked Trump how he felt about “not getting any credit” from the Biden administration.
“So when you go to the Covid issue, we did a great job. We get very little credit for it. I closed the country far earlier. Dr. Fauci and Birx and all of these people that, frankly, made nothing but mistakes, they didn’t want to do it. They didn’t want to close it to China,” Trump responded. “I closed the border to China. I closed the border to Europe, Italy, and all of these countries that were having tremendous problems long before they wanted me to do it.”
“If you look at Biden, he didn’t want to do it months afterwards, and then ultimately he admitted that he made a mistake in saying that. If I didn’t do that, we would have had hundreds of thousands of more lives gone,” Trump concluded.
Trump didn’t go into any other specifics on the job performances of Fauci and Birx in his interview with Bartiromo other than their positions on China. His administration announced the China travel restrictions on Jan. 31 last year, which Fauci reportedly opposed. Birx, however, actually praised the administration’s decision, according to Vox.
Birx announced her retirement from the White House in December and Fauci currently serves as chief medical advisor for Biden.
Trump himself has had to confront many criticisms for early missteps handling the virus, including downplaying the virus and saying it would “go away” within a matter of days or weeks. Daily Caller co-founder Tucker Carlson even flew to meet with Trump at Mar-a-lago in March 2020 to convince him of the seriousness of the virus.