Donald Trump, 74, wants to know why “nobody” likes him, while the same can’t be said about the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci. After the U.S. president’s approval rating dropped to a new low of 38 percent (according to The Atlantic, which cited a June 2020 poll from Gallup), Trump voiced his complaints at a press conference about the COVID-19 pandemic on July 28.
President Trump asks why Dr. Anthony Fauci has high approval ratings, but he doesn't. He says of Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx: "They are highly thought of, but nobody likes me. It can only be my personality, that's all." https://t.co/Nj065CIsxp pic.twitter.com/R7h647fiQR
— CBS News (@CBSNews) July 28, 2020
“I have a very good relationship with Dr. Fauci. It’s sort of interesting. We’ve listened to Dr. Fauci. I haven’t always agreed with him, that I think is pretty standard. That’s OK,” Trump began. The POTUS then tried to point out his own contributions in the fight against the coronavirus.
“[Fauci] did not want to ban…put up the ban to China when China was heavily infected, very badly, Wuhan. He didn’t want to do that and I did and other things. And he told me I was right and he told me I saved tens of thousands of lives, which was generous. But I think it’s fact. Then I did the ban on Europe,” Trump continued. And yet, Trump insisted, “But I get along with him very well and I agree with a lot of what he said.”
With that said, Trump couldn’t fathom why Americans appeared to like Fauci more than himself, according to a new poll released by Morning Consult and POLITICO for July 10-12. Sixty-two percent of voters in the poll believed Fauci had either an “excellent” or “good” handling of the pandemic, while only thiry-six percent of voters said the same about the president. “You know it’s interesting, he’s got a very good approval rating and I like that. It’s good. Because, remember, he’s working for this administration,” Trump said during Tuesday’s press conference.
Apparently, Trump doesn’t find this “good approval rating” fair in comparison to his own, though. “We could have gotten other people. We could have gotten somebody else. It didn’t have to be Dr. Fauci. He’s working with our administration and for the most part we’ve done pretty much what he and others… recommended. And he’s got this high approval rating. So, why don’t I have a high approval rating with respect? And the administration with respect to the virus?,” Trump asked.
The POTUS wasn’t done complaining. “We should have a very high, because what we’ve done in terms of…the masks and the gowns and the ventilators and numbers that nobody’s seen; and the testing at 55 million tests,” Trump continued. Therefore, he could only come to one conclusion. “So it is curious, a man works for us, with us, very closely, Dr. Fauci and Dr. [Deborah] Birx…they’re highly thought of and nobody likes me. It could only be my personality, that’s all,” Trump concluded.
Dr. Anthony Fauci to @GStephanopoulos: “The overwhelming prevailing clinical trials that have looked at the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine have indicated that it is not effective in coronavirus disease.” https://t.co/JgCvhTifYS pic.twitter.com/bajYTh2kHW
— Good Morning America (@GMA) July 28, 2020
The U.S. currently leads the world in highest number of reported coronavirus cases, a number that currently stands at more than 4.4 million cases. That’s nearly more than double the number of cases Brazil has, which comes in second among the rankings for most reported coronavirus cases by nation.
Trump’s comments came after his Twitter account retweeted posts that claimed Fauci was “misleading Americans and promoted hydroxychloroquine,” according to CNBC (the tweets are now gone from Trump’s page). However, Fauci already responded when he appeared on an interview for Good Morning America on July 28 (watch above). “The overwhelming prevailing clinical trials that have looked at the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine have indicated that it is not effective in coronavirus disease,” Fauci said, and added, “I have not been misleading the American public under any circumstances.”