Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US infectious disease expert, will not be fired, according to White House spokesman Hogan Gidley.
"This media chatter is ridiculous - President Trump is not firing Dr Fauci," said Gidley. "Dr Fauci has been and remains a trusted adviser to President Trump."
The "chatter" all started when Fauci was interviewed on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday. He was asked if lives could have been save had social distancing been implemented by US President Donald Trump in February.
"It's very difficult to go back and say that. I mean, obviously, you could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives. Obviously, no one is going to deny that," said Fauci.
"What goes into those kinds of decisions is – is complicated. But you're right. I mean, obviously, if we had, right from the very beginning, shut everything down, it may have been a little bit different. But there was a lot of pushback about shutting things down back then," he added.
Fauci admitted on Monday he used a "poor choice of words" when he suggested lives could have been saved had the government imposed coronavirus restrictions earlier than March.
"Hypothetical questions sometimes can get you into some difficulty," Fauci said in a statement.
On Sunday, Trump re-tweeted a supporter's post on Sunday that Fauci must be fired. The Tweet reads: “Fauci is now saying that had Trump listened to the medical experts earlier he could’ve saved more lives."
“Fauci was telling people on February 29th that there was nothing to worry about and it posed no threat to the US at large. Time to #Fire Fauci.”
Trump’s accompanying message to the Tweet is: “Sorry Fake News, it’s all on tape. I banned China long before people spoke up.”
Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, clarified that he was not forced by Trump to issue a statement. "Everything I do is voluntary. Please. Don’t even imply that," Fauci told reporters.
These comments were made before the president reiterated that he would not fire his nationally recognized health care policy adviser.
Trump also defended his response to the spiraling coronavirus pandemic.
The speech accompanied a video produced by the White House. The video shows messages of governors and other officials praising Trump for imposing restrictions that slowed the economy in order to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
"Everything we did was right," Trump said on Monday, lashing out on inaccurate news reports on the response.
Moreover, he claimed he possesses more power than governors when it comes to managing the economy and reopening it, a view that does not support what most legal analysts affirm that authority lies in governors.
"When somebody is the president of the United States, the authority is total – and that's the way it's got to be," Trump said.
White House spokesman Gidley emphasized that Trump's retweet on Sunday sparked "media chatter" and called the entire situation "ridiculous." He said, "President Trump is not firing Dr. Fauci" but defending himself against what he considers unfair attacks on his coronavirus response."
"Dr. Fauci has been and remains a trusted adviser to President Trump," Gidley added.
Gidley said Trump's retweet "clearly exposed media attempts to maliciously push a falsehood about his China decision in an attempt to rewrite history. It was Democrats and the media who ignored coronavirus, choosing to focus on impeachment instead."
