President Donald Trump took aim at his White House Coronavirus Task Force coordinator Monday on Twitter, calling Dr. Deborah Birx “pathetic” a day after she warned Americans the coronavirus pandemic was “extraordinarily widespread” in the United States and that face masks would be crucial to stemming new infections.
It was the latest in a series of public disagreements between the president and the government’s top health officials as Trump pushes for schools and businesses to reopen despite an intense national resurgence of the outbreak.
“What we are seeing today is different from March and April. It is extraordinarily widespread,” Birx said during a Sunday interview with CNN’s “State of the Union.” “So everybody who lives in a rural area, you are not immune.”
Birx was responding to remarks by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was asked on ABC’s “This Week” about a Politico report claiming she described Birx as a spreader of disinformation during a closed-door meeting Friday with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
"Deborah Birx is the worst. Wow, what horrible hands you're in," Pelosi said at the meeting, according to Politico.
On Sunday, Pelosi expanded on her remarks, saying she didn’t trust the information provided by Birx because of the doctor’s apparent loyalty to the president.
Birx “is his appointee, so I don’t have confidence there, no,” Pelosi said.
In response, Birx said, "I have never been called Pollyanna-ish or non-scientific or non-data-driven, and I will stake my 40-year career on those fundamental principles of utilizing data to really implement better programs to save more lives."
Trump then weighed in on the matter Monday morning.
"So crazy Nancy Pelosi said horrible things about Dr. Deborah Birx, going after her because she was too positive on the very good job we are doing on combatting the China Virus, including Vaccines & Therapeutics. In order to counter Nancy, Deborah took the bait & hit us. Pathetic!"
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert and head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been at the center of many conflicts with Trump because his opinions often contradict the president's.
In recent weeks, some members of the administration began publicly discrediting Fauci's handling of the pandemic.
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro wrote a USA Today op-ed slamming Fauci, who, he claimed, "has been wrong about everything I interacted with him on."
While Fauci’s public visibility has waned during the last few months, Birx has emerged to assess the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic, avoiding any land mines in the process — until Monday, which was the first time she appeared to be at odds with Trump.
Trump avoided addressing the matter when asked about it during a news conference Monday evening, but then said the nation was “doing very well” although the U.S. toll has surpassed 4.7 million cases and 155,000 deaths, according to the National Institutes of Health.
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