White House denies Trump wants top expert's ouster

WASHINGTON

The White House denied Monday that U.S. President Donald Trump is seeking to fire the country's top infections disease expert after the president implied he wanted to do so.

"This media chatter is ridiculous - President Trump is not firing Dr. Fauci," spokesman Hogan Gidley said in a statement, referring to Anthony Fauci. "It was Democrats and the media who ignored Coronavirus."

The statement follows Trump retweeting of a former congressional candidate who called for Fauci to be removed, accusing the medical professional of shifting positions on the danger posed by the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.

"Fauci is now saying that had Trump listened to the medical experts earlier he could've saved more lives," Deanna Lorraine wrote in the message retweeted by Trump. "Fauci was telling people on February 29th that there was nothing to worry about and it posed no threat to the US public at large."

"Time to #FireFauci..." the California Republican and staunch Trump supporter added.

Trump himself did not use the words, but retweeted Lorraine's message to his 77 million followers without distancing himself from them.

Gidley maintained the Fauci "has been and remains a trusted advisor to President Trump."

Fauci said Sunday that if the Trump administration had earlier implemented coronavirus mitigation efforts more lives could have been saved.

Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, also said he "can't guarantee" that it would be safe to vote in-person in November's presidential elections due to the pandemic.

Trump, who has been defending his administration's coronavirus response record from the beginning of the outbreak, has voiced concern about mail-in ballots, despite personally using them in the past.

The U.S. remains the country with the most COVID-19 infections and deaths. A study from Johns Hopkins University counts 568,176 confirmed cases and 22,935 deaths.

The university also found 42,071 recoveries and over 2.8 million tests for the virus.