President Trump is defending his administration’s response to the pandemic, as he generally does at his rallies.
He offered a reminder that Dr Fauci at one point said that people should not wear a mask.
The doctor has said that an early recommendation about not wearing a mask was because there was a shortage of personal protective equipment for health professionals at the time.
He has since called for universal mask wearing.
President Trump called Dr Fauci a nice guy, “so I keep him around”.
But he also described Dr Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, as a Democrat.
“Everybody knows that. He’s Cuomo’s friend,” President Trump said, a reference to New York Governor Andrew Cuomo.
Dr Fauci has been studiously apolitical over a five-decade career in public health.
The doctor has expressed dismay that the president used his comments in a campaign advert and says his comments were taken out of comments.
