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‘You’re talking to the wrong person’: Fauci squirms when asked about incorrect White House tweet

May 14, 2022 | | Print Article

(Video: CNN)

White House Chief Medical Advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci got a bit defensive Friday when CNN’s Jake Tapper pressed him on a completely false statement tweeted from the official, verified White House Twitter account that claimed there was no COVID-19 vaccine available when Donald Trump was President.

Appearing on CNN’s “The Lead,” Tapper showed Fauci the tweet in question.

“When President Biden took office, millions were unemployed and there was no vaccine available,” the White House claimed on Thursday. “In the last 15 months, the economy has created 8.3M jobs and the unemployment rate stands at 3.6% — the fasted decline in unemployment to start a President’s term ever recorded.”

It’s a rather staggering untruth, considering news stations literally showed then-President-Elect Biden receiving his first jab on live television in December 2020, when Trump was still in office.

“I know you don’t tweet from the White House account, but I wanted to raise this because amazingly this White House tweet is still up,” Tapper told Fauci.

“CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale points out more than 3 million Americans had been fully vaccinated, more than 18 million had at least one shot by Inauguration Day,” Tapper continued. “I think President Biden, then-President-Elect Biden, had had two shots by then.”

“You’re the president’s chief medical adviser,” Tapper stated. “Why is the White House politicizing the pandemic by tweeting out there was no vaccine available until Joe Biden became president? It’s not true.”

The question was enough for Fauci to adopt a snippy tone.

“You know, Jake, I’m sorry, I can’t explain every tweet that comes out,” he retorted. “So you’re talking to the wrong person. I wasn’t involved in the tweet. I just can’t explain it. Sorry.”

But Tapper wasn’t willing to let the matter drop so easily.

“I know you can’t explain it,” he replied, “but certainly you would agree that it’s important to have facts when it comes to assertions being made about the vaccine, whether it’s from the Trump White House or the Biden White House. And certainly, you would agree that there was a vaccine available before Joe Biden became president.”

It was an obvious point that the defensive doctor seemed to concede only with reluctance.

“Yeah, of course. I mean, he got vaccinated, and others got vaccinated,” Fauci acknowledged. “So, I mean, I think from a pure accuracy, that’s not a correct statement. But I mean, you know, it just went out. I’m sorry, there’s nothing I could do about that, Jake.”

Tapper took the dismissive win and praised Fauci for it.

“All right,” he relented. “Well, I think you have done something by pointing out it’s inaccurate.”

In the age of the Biden administration’s Disinformation Governance Board, Twitter users are not so quick to let the matter drop, especially, as Tapper noted, the blatantly false tweet is still up and has been shared nearly 10,000 times.

“Somebody get the ministry of truth in here stat,” urged Chris Manning. “Fact: when president Biden took office the FDA had approved both Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccine for EUA and was administering about 1 million doses a day.”‘


And editor Jeryl Bier illustrated that there’s even a video of Biden receiving his second shot a week before he was sworn into office.

“What was president-elect Biden injected with?” Bier asked. “Sugar water?”

But things can move swiftly online, and, as BizPac Review reported, the White House, after finally shamed by mocking Twitter users into issuing a correction late Saturday afternoon, is already being mocked for its retraction.

“We previously misstated that vaccines were unavailable in January 2021,” the White House tweeted. “We should have said that they were not widely available.”

“The White House was lying when they put the statement out and they’re still lying now,” responded one user. “The vaccine was as widely available as possible. Delete your account posers.”

 

 

Melissa Fine
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