Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is sharing that he has “total” confidence in Dr. Anthony Fauci, who has been under attack in recent weeks.
During an appearance in Kentucky, McConnell was asked, “What is your level of confidence in Dr. Fauci at this point?”
The Kentucky lawmaker responded simply, “Total.”
Video via CBS affiliate @WLKY
— Alan He (@alanhe) July 15, 2020
Q: "What's your level of confidence in Dr. Fauci at this point?"
McConnell: "Total." pic.twitter.com/b5PdtYQoRO
Throughout the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic, Fauci was a regular face on television during the daily coronavirus task force briefings. But Trump and Fauci’s relationship has since grown if not colder, then certainly more distant. Fauci has said that he sometimes goes weeks without speaking to the president.
This week, Trump amplified a tweet accusing Fauci and others of lying and the reports circulated of anti-Fauci talking points. And this week, top White House advisor Peter Navarro, who has butted heads with Fauci behind-the-scenes declared in an op-ed, “Dr. Anthony Fauci has a good bedside manner with the public, but he has been wrong about everything I have interacted with him on.”
The White House later distanced itself from Navarro’s editorial.
But Fauci has retained support at least in the Republican Senate. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) beat back on attacks against Fauci, saying in a press conference, “We don’t have a Dr. Fauci problem, we need to be focusing on doing things that get us where we need to go. So I have all the respect in the world for Dr. Fauci. I think any effort to undermine him is not going to be productive, quite frankly.”
The South Carolina lawmaker added, “Getting in a contest with Dr. Fauci about whether he was right or wrong doesn’t move the ball forward because here’s where we are as a nation, the infection rate is going up, we shut the whole country down.”