Dr. Anthony Fauci refused to believe that Barack Obama is to blame for the coronavirus testing failures despite Donald Trump’s allegations.
The federal government’s top infectious disease expert declined to back the POTU’s assertion that the Obama administration caused delays in the testing for COVID-19.
During his interview on “Fox News Sunday,” host Chris Wallace asked the physician straight out if he agrees with the president of the United States.
“To be honest with you, I’m not sure what regulations and what they’re talking about. I really mean that. I’m trying to figure out what it is that these things were in place that we're able to be inhibiting. But one thing that I do know now is that the ability to get a test had some regulatory and other restrictions on it but the FDA now has just gotten rid of,” he said.
Wallace responded to Fauci by saying that the coronavirus testing could have been done on day one. Fauci agreed that the Trump administration could have done it but the fact is that they didn’t. The doctor then went on to say that it’s more important to look at where they’re going instead of looking back at what did and didn’t happen.
On Friday, the POTUS blamed Obama and the latter’s administration for the H1N1 swine flu pandemic by calling it a full-scale disaster. At that time, Melania Trump’s husband also criticized the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for allegedly being ill-prepared to administer tests for the deadly coronavirus.
“For decades the @CDCgov looked at, and studied its testing system, but did nothing about it. It would always be inadequate and slow for a large-scale pandemic, but a pandemic would never happen, they hoped. President Obama made changes that only complicated things further…” Trump tweeted.
“Their response to H1N1 Swine Flu was a full-scale disaster, with thousands dying, and nothing meaningful done to fix the testing problem, until now. The changes have been made and testing will soon happen on a very large-scale basis. All Red Tape has been cut, ready to go!” he wrote in a follow-up tweet.