With misleading advertising Trump takes advantage of the words of Dr. Fauci

By Bill McCarthy -

A new campaign ad for President Donald Trump's campaign uses an out-of-context quote from Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading expert on contagious diseases, to praise the president's response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has caused death. of more than 214,000 Americans.

"President Trump faced the virus decisively as leaders should," says the narrator of the ad, before turning to Fauci to emphasize the message.

"I can't imagine ... anyone could be doing more," Fauci says in the ad.

Fauci's comment referred to the White House task force to address the coronavirus and the government's response in general, not to Trump.

Also, the appointment is almost seven months old.

Speaking to CNN, Fauci said that, in his opinion, his words were taken out of context.

The 30-second ad, titled "Carefully," underscores Trump's recent coronavirus contagion and ensures that the United States is "recovering" from the pandemic.

The ad was posted on YouTube on October 10, the same day the United States reported its highest number of new COVID-19 cases since mid-August.

The ad also shows various moments when Trump is seen wearing face masks (a move he has repeatedly criticized and rarely taken in public places, since he first did so in July).

Fauci's phrase was cut from a March 22 interview with Fox News host Mark Levin.

The publicity suggests that Fauci was talking specifically about Trump by saying "I can't imagine that [...] someone else could be doing better."

But that's misleading, as other fact-checkers and other news sites have pointed out, and as Fauci himself told CNN.

Looking at the full context, it is understood that Fauci was speaking about the burden facing the White House task force for the coronavirus at the start of the pandemic, and about the magnitude of the mobilization of the federal government at a time when cases in the United States were increasing.

"The phrase that the Republican Party campaign attributes to me without my permission was taken out of context from a statement I made months ago about the work of health authorities in general," Fauci told CNN, adding that in all his professional career he never has publicly supported any candidate.

The coronavirus task force has been led by Vice President Mike Pence since late February, and has included doctors and scientists from public health agencies, as well as national security officials and other political officials.

When asked about Fauci's use of the phrase, a Trump campaign spokesperson told PolitiFact that the ad was talking about the Trump administration's response to the coronavirus, just as Fauci was.

Another campaign employee told Business Insider news website that "it is the president's working group for coronavius."

Levin did ask Fauci if he had "ever seen such a large coordinated response from a government to a threat like" the coronavirus.

This is Fauci's response, with the relevant quote in bold:

“Well, we have never had a threat like this and the coordinated response has been… there are several adjectives to describe it.

Impressive, I think, is one of them.

That is, we talk about all the resources dedicated to this.

I, as one of several people on a team (I am not the only person), from the beginning when we hardly knew what this was, I have been dedicated almost full time to this, almost full time.

I am in the White House practically every day with the task force.

I talk on the phone all day and even at night.

When I say night I mean at 12, 1 or 2 in the morning.

I'm not the only one.

There is a whole group that is doing this.

And so every day.

. "

Fauci did not mention Trump in his response, although he later spoke of the "very timely decision of the president" to restrict flights from China when he spoke of mitigation efforts that could serve to curb the contagion.

The interview was broadcast on March 22, when the United States had recorded about 34,800 confirmed cases and about 570 deaths from coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University.

The United States is the country with the most cases (more than 7.7 million) and deaths (more than 214,000) registered in the world to date.

The message of Trump's campaign publicity depicting a country recovering from the pandemic contradicts Fauci's most recent statements.

In a virtual chat with the American University on October 6, Fauci said that the United States is facing "a resurgence of the wave we started with" and that "the models tell us that if we don't do what we have to do in the fall and winter, we could have between 300,000 and 400,000 deaths from COVID-19.

Fauci also said that the White House event with Judge Amy Coney Barrett, Trump's nominee to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court, had been a "super-spreading event."

Trump announced that he had tested positive for coronavirus a few days after the event, which saw little social distancing or use of masks.

The White House has not said how Trump contracted COVID-19. 

The ad says Trump "is recovering from the coronavirus."

The White House doctor said on Oct. 10 that Trump "is no longer considered a risk of contagion," but did not say if he still had symptoms or if he had tested negative for the virus, according to NPR.

Our rating

A Trump campaign ad claims Fauci said of Trump's response to the pandemic: "I can't imagine ... anyone could be doing more."

Advertising's use of Fauci's phrase is misleading.

Fauci said this almost seven months before the ad was published and he was not talking about Trump.

Fauci told CNN that he did not give permission to appear in the ad and that he felt it had been taken out of context.

The full context of the quote shows that Fauci was speaking about the White House coronavirus task force and about the federal government in general.

So the advertising claim contains an element of truth, but ignores fundamental facts that would give a different impression.

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This data verification was translated by Pablo Medina Uribe thanks to the FactChat agreement, coordinated by the 

International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN)

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