Fauci: My Trump Social Distancing ‘Pushback’ Comments a ‘Wrong Choice of Words’

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert on President Trump’s coronavirus task force, said his comments Sunday that his early recommendations for social distancing received “pushback” by Trump administration officials in the early days of the U.S. coronavirus outbreak were a “wrong choice of words.” Fauci said at Monday’s coronavirus press briefing that he wanted to “clarify” his remarks in an interview with CNN on Sunday in which he said that if mitigation efforts had started earlier, “obviously” more lives would have been saved. “But clearly as happens all the time, there were interpretations of that response to a hypothetical question that I just thought it would be very nice for me to clarify,” he said. Fauci asserted during the briefing on Monday that Trump ultimately “listened to the recommendation” of implementing social distancing measures to mitigate the spread of the virus.