CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and Chris Cillizza Dunk On Trump’s Fauci Ad: ‘Seems To Go Too Far…This Could Backfire On The President’

CNN’s Editor-at-Large Chris Cillizza and The Situation Room host Wolf Blitzer critiqued President Donald Trump’s new campaign ad featuring an out-of-context comment by Dr. Anthony Fauci, saying that while people expected political ads to be misleading, “this one seems to go too far,” and predicting that it could backfire on the president.

As Mediaite reported earlier, the Trump ad took a quote of Fauci back in March praising the work of his fellow members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, and presented it as if it were lauding Trump’s current performance through October, after more than 7 million Americans have contracted Covid-19 and more than 214,000 have died.

Blitzer began the segment noting that the relationship between Trump and Fauci “hasn’t always been smooth sailing,” noting that Fauci himself had publicly condemned the ad as using his words out of context and without his permission.

“We know political ads can be misleading,” said Blitzer. “This one seems to go too far.”

Cillizza agreed, noting the age of Fauci’s quote and the misrepresented context.

“This is Anthony Fauci broadly praising the work of the coronavirus task force, not Donald Trump in particular, but the task force saying they are doing everything they can. This is cut up to make it look as though he is praising Donald Trump when in fact he wasn’t.”

Furthermore, Cillizza continued, Fauci “has been pushed aside for Dr. Scott Atlas and other people who more accurately reflect what Donald Trump believes to be the case with the virus: it is going away, we are rounding a corner — pick your metaphor, but that things are getting better,” whereas Fauci was far less optimistic in his outlook as the winter flu season approached.

“You think this could backfire on the president with — what? — 23 days to go until the election?” asked Blitzer.

“I would say the answer is yes,” Cillizza replied, but he was skeptical how big of an impact it could have. He cited recent polls showing 41% approval and 58% disapproval on how well Trump was handling the pandemic, and noted that he was not sure how much further Trump’s polling could drop on this issue, with a string of polls consistently saying about 60 percent disapproved.

These numbers reflected those voters “who will be with Donald Trump no matter what happens under any circumstances,” Cillizza noted. “It’s a hard percentage — effectively, everyone outside of the Trump base has soured on Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus…so it could potentially hurt him, but I think honestly, most people have made up their mind about how Donald Trump has handled this pandemic.”

If the ad does end up backfiring on Trump’s campaign, the president’s own efforts to keep it in the news cycle may end up being to blame. Earlier Sunday evening, he tweeted in response to the criticism of the ad, defending it as being “indeed Dr. Fauci’s own words.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.