‘I inherited him’: Trump disowns Fauci and moves closer to adviser with controversial herd immunity beliefs

 In an interview with Fox News’s Laura Ingraham, Donald Trump said he generally doesn’t agree with his top coronavirus adviser Dr Anthony Fauci, and gave credence to the idea of relying on mass infection to create “herd immunity”.

Broadcast on Monday, the interview — which also saw the president claim Joe Biden is a puppet of “people you’ve never heard of” lurking in “the dark shadows” — included an exchange on efforts to end the coronavirus outbreak in the US, which focused in part on Mr Trump’s relationship with Dr Fauci.

“If you had to do it all again,” asked host Laura Ingraham, “I know it’s kind of a hard question — would you put Fauci front and centre, every day, in charge of the coronavirus task force?”

Mr Trump appeared unenthusiastic at the idea. “I get along with him very well, I disagree with a lot of what he says. He said ‘keep it open for China’, that was a big mistake and he admits it.”

Dr Fauci in fact is on record as recommending travel restrictions on China, as well as continental Europe and the UK, since the earliest days of the US outbreak.

I just — I get along with him,” Mr Trump continued, “but just once in a while he’ll come up with one that I say ‘where did that come from’?

“I inherited him. He was here, he was a part of this huge piece of machinery. I didn’t put anyone in charge, he was here ... you inherit a lot of people as part of the machinery, and you have some you love, some you don’t.

“I like him. I don’t agree with him that often. But I like him.”

Since the pandemic began, Dr Fauci has routinely had the responsibility of issuing evidence-based and less optimistic prognoses about the virus’s spread that temper Mr Trump’s sometimes blithe opinions and positive false claims, which include the idea that the virus will at some point “disappear”.

In part because of these public correctives, Dr Fauci has long been less than popular among many of Mr Trump’s allies, many of whom have criticised him for supposedly over-egging the risk from the virus and differing with the president on important points — among them the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malarial drug long promoted as a potential Covid-19 cure by Ms Ingraham herself.

Ms Ingraham asked Mr Trump if the pace of vaccine development might worry some parents cautious of a hastily developed vaccine, especially those who object to the idea of the government making vaccinations mandatory.