CNN’s Berman Pans White House Attack on Fauci’s Credibility: ‘I Don’t See How That Saves a Single Life’

CNN’s John Berman is not impressed by the White House’s effort to undermine National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci amid tensions between him and President Donald Trump.

Berman and Aliysn Camerota spoke to CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta on Monday to get his reaction to a memo the White House released to the media over the weekend. Camerota noted that the memo reads like “opposition research,” for it contains numerous alleged “mistakes” from Fauci and out-of-context remarks that make it seem designed to attack his credibility.

After Gupta refuted the attacks on Fauci and noted that he has not met with Trump in more than a month, Gupta said Fauci is “feeling a little beaten up by all of this,” but “he wants to stay on the job.” When asked if he thinks Fauci is in danger of losing his job, Gupta demurred.

“I don’t know,” Gupta said. “I ask him that, he is going to the White House today, to have some of these meetings, but I don’t think that he knows. He’s been a little bit in a black hole, I think, with regard to this. He is seeing some of these attacks come out at the same time that the rest of us see these attacks come out.”

As Berman wondered what would happen if Trump did fire Fauci, he remarked “I’m at a loss for how this saves a single life.”

“That’s the part of it to me that just really makes your head explode here,” he went on. “There are 135,000. It’s right there on your screen. 135,000 dead Americans from this. Florida just had the single highest case count that any state has seen, which is more than South Korea has had the entire pandemic. And the president’s attacking Dr. Fauci. I don’t see how that saves a single life.”

Watch above, via CNN.