Donald Trump Mocks Dr. Anthony Fauci as a ‘Promoter’ and ‘Radical Masker’ While Pushing Unproven Wuhan Lab Leak Theory

 
WASHINGTON, DC - APRIL 07: Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, listens to U.S. President Donald Trump speak to reporters following a meeting of the coronavirus task force in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on April 7, 2020 in Washington, DC. The president today removed the independent chairman of a committee tasked with overseeing the roll out of the $2 trillion coronavirus bailout package. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Former President Donald Trump claimed Saturday he “actually got along with” Dr. Anthony Fauci before blasting the infectious disease expert’s abilities during his speech at the North Carolina GOP Convention.

“He’s a nice guy, he’s a great promoter, you know,” Trump said. “Not a great doctor, but he’s a hell of a promoter. He likes television more than any politician in this room and they like television. But he’s been wrong on almost every issue and he was wrong on Wuhan and the lab also, very wrong.”

The claim that Covid-19 originated from a Wuhan lab has gained traction in recent weeks, and while it still is just an unproven theory at the moment, more scientists have become open to it.  “That possibility certainly exists, and I am totally in favor of whether that could have happened,” Fauci told a Senate committee in May.

Trump bragged in his speech about closing the U.S. border to travelers from China, despite Fauci’s advice. He then mocked the doctor for becoming “radical masker” after previously saying masks were unnecessary.

“If you have three, if you have four [masks], get a pair of goggles ideally, and let’s wear them for another five or six years,” Trump joked.

The former president then focused his attention again toward China and its role in the global pandemic, though the validity of the Wuhan lab leak theory is still unclear.

Trump claimed Fauci had “never been more wrong” when it came to his theories about the origins of the virus. “The time has come for America and the world to demand reparations and accountability from the Communist Party of China. We should all declare with one unified voice that China must pay. They must pay.”

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