US Election 2020: Anthony Fauci says Trump campaign ad quote misleading

His words that he “can’t imagine that anybody could be doing more” to fight Covid-19 appear in the ad to refer to President Donald Trump specifically.

But Dr Fauci, who clashed with Mr Trump before on Covid, was actually talking about himself and other staff.

The infectious diseases expert said he had never publicly endorsed any political candidate.

The dispute comes as President Trump returns to the campaign trail on Monday, just two days after his doctors gave him the all-clear to resume public events following his own treatment for coronavirus.

He faces Democrat Joe Biden in the election on 3 November.

What’s the Fauci row about?

The 30-second campaign advert declares that “President Trump is recovering from the coronavirus, and so is America”, before playing the clip of Dr Fauci.

The Fauci footage comes from an interview the epidemiologist did with Fox News in March.

Dr Fauci’s full words in that interview are: “I have been devoting almost full time on this. I’m down at the White House virtually every day with the task force. It’s every single day. So, I can’t imagine that under any circumstances that anybody could be doing more.”