White House Clarifies President Trump’s ‘Fire Fauci’ Tweet Fiasco

Tensions are running high all across America as this global pandemic continues to aggressively smother our social and emotional lives.

Yes, social distancing is still a very important piece of the health and wellness puzzle right now, but not everyone is going to adjust to their newfound quasi-isolation well.  There are people who, while thankful for their own safety, are still struggling.  These are stressful days, regardless of whether or not anyone is running around like a chicken with their head missing.

That’s why we’re at each others’ throats on social media, and why we’re denouncing every expert we disagree with.

Somehow, all of this uncertainty and sensationalism has found its way into the White House, after a tweet by President Trump sparked wild headlines.

President Trump won’t fire White House coronavirus task force member Anthony Fauci despite sharing a tweet with the hashtag #FireFauci, a spokesman said on Monday.

“This media chatter is ridiculous – President Trump is not firing Dr. Fauci,” said White House principal deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley.

“The President’s tweet clearly exposed media attempts to maliciously push a falsehood about his China decision in an attempt to rewrite history,” Gidley said. “It was Democrats and the media who ignored Coronavirus choosing to focus on impeachment instead, and when they finally did comment on the virus it was to attack President Trump for taking the bold decisive action to save American lives by cutting off travel from China and from Europe. Dr. Fauci has been and remains a trusted advisor to President Trump.”

The media may very well have blown the entire incident out of proportion, of course.

Trump’s retweet of a supporter’s call to #FireFauci did not directly comment on Fauci and followed a New York Times article that said he was slow to react to the pandemic.

“Sorry Fake News, it’s all on tape. I banned China long before people spoke up,” Trump wrote.

Trump attached that remark in sharing a tweet that said: “Fauci is now saying that had Trump listened to the medical experts earlier he could’ve saved more lives. 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…”

It seems that the media mistook the ancillary hashtag to be the main sentiment of the retweet and ran with it.

We’re not surprised.