MIAMI — To the chants of "Fire Fauci," President Donald Trump suggested during his late-night rally Sunday in the Miami area that Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country's top infectious disease expert, might be out of a job after the election.
Fauci has helped lead the country's efforts through the COVID-19 pandemic as a member of the White House coronavirus task force and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Trump flirted with the idea of firing Fauci during the rally at Miami-Opa locka Executive airport, where thousands crowded well past Miami-Dade County's midnight curfew in support of the president. Miami-Dade is one of Florida's hardest hit counties and has had more than 186,000 confirmed cases of the disease and 3,662 deaths. Many in the crowd did not wear masks.
At one point, while Trump was discussing his frustration over the media's COVID-19 coverage, the crowd began to chant "Fire Fauci."
Trump's response?
"Don't tell anybody, but let me wait till a little bit after the election," Trump said. "I appreciate the advice. Now, he's been wrong a lot. He's a nice man though."
Fauci and the president, who recovered from COVID-19 last month, have had a rocky relationship throughout the pandemic and have disagreed on how the country has handled and should continue to manage the disease.
Most recently, the White House blasted Fauci for criticizing the Trump administration's COVID-19 response while praising Trump's presidential rival Joe Biden for "taking it seriously from a public health perspective" during an interview with the Washington Post Friday.
"We're in for a whole lot of hurt. It's not a good situation," Fauci told the Post. "All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors. You could not possibly be positioned more poorly."
White House Deputy Press Secretary Judd Deere told CBS News in a statement that it was "unacceptable and breaking with all norms" for Fauci to play politics just before Election Day.
"As a member of the Task Force, Dr. Fauci has a duty to express concerns or push for a change in strategy, but he's not done that, instead choosing to criticize the president in the media and make his political leanings known by praising the president's opponent — exactly what the American people have come to expect from The Swamp," Deere's statement reads in part.
Can Trump actually fire Fauci?
Under federal law, Trump doesn't have the power to directly fire Fauci, but he could try ordering his political appointees to dismiss him, CNN reported. Fauci would then have the opportunity to appeal the decision.
