CNN’s David Axelrod Calls Out Trump’s ‘Insane Strategy’ of Insulting Fauci, Downplaying Covid Resurgence In Campaign’s Final Days

During a CNN panel, political analyst David Axelrod and special correspondent Jamie Gangel called out the widespread bafflement about President Donald Trump’s closing campaign strategy of directly attacking Dr. Anthony Fauci and dismissing the pandemic even as Covid cases climb to record highs in much of the country.

In an appearance on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, Axelrod and Gangel pointed out Trump’s all-out assault on his top infectious diseases expert, where he trashed Fauci as a “disaster” and threatened to fire him during a campaign call and sneered at his mask wearing on Twitter.

“As you saw, the president has a very narrow path to 270 electoral votes. His closing message is an all-out attack on Dr. Fauci. That makes no political sense at all,” Blitzer said to Axelrod.

“Early retirement from the presidency is what — is the most rational analysis of that” strategy, Axelrod joked. “I’ve spoken to people on both sides today, and everybody agrees that this is an insane strategy and it’s not just fighting with Fauci. He went to Michigan, a state that is among those that David [Chalian] described as the old blue wall, and he attacks the governor who was targeted in a kidnapping by terrorists, essentially, domestic terrorists, and he makes light of that. He goes to Wisconsin, a state that has 20,000 new cases in the past week, and he talks down the coronavirus, and then today, he spent the day campaigning against Fauci.”

Axelrod then referenced a NYT/Siena poll from over the summer that found the American public trusted the CDC (77%) and Fauci (67%) far more than Trump (26%) on the coronavirus.

“That’s the fight he wants to pick two weeks before the election? It is nuts,” Axelrod declared.

Turning to Gangel, Blitzer asked how Trump’s downballot Republican colleagues are reacting to the the president’s homestretch messaging.

“Right now, Republicans who are counting on Donald Trump to help them across the finish line, they’re looking for a bigger desk to hide under,” she explained. “And just, look, we do not know what is going to happen when we get to Election Day. But the Republicans I spoke to today said: ‘This is self-destructive behavior.’ And they point back to Walter Reed, the bizarre behavior we’ve been seeing ever since, and one of them said to me: ‘Do you think he wants to lose?’ And they’re really worried about the rest of the party and the rest of these elections. The word I kept hearing all day today, Wolf, was ‘cratering.'”

Watch the video above, via CNN.

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