Donald Trump has attempted to take a harsh stance against COVID interventions during his 2024 presidential run, despite overseeing many of the protective measures enforced during the pandemic.
The former president recently railed against news that institutions were reinstating mask mandates, pledging that if elected again next year he would "use every available authority to cut federal funding to any school, college, airline or public transportation system that imposes a mask mandate or a vaccine mandate."
However, political rival and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis recently attacked Trump over his record on COVID, claiming that Dr. Anthony Fauci had boasted how the former president had taken all his instructions during the pandemic.
The Claim
During an interview with Fox News on September 8, 2023, Ron De Santis claimed that Trump's campaign team ran an ad in October 2020 in which Fauci said Trump did everything he wanted him to do.
A clip of the interview posted by @DeSantisWarRoom on X formerly Twitter, on September 8, 2023, viewed 103,000 times, shows DeSantis saying "But I would note this because this is important. You know, Donald Trump's reelection campaign in October of 2020 was running ads bragging, with Fauci saying 'Trump did everything I told him to do.'
"They were putting that out. They were bragging about it."
The Facts
Ron DeSantis has repeated this claim several times including on Fox Across America with Jimmy Failla on September 14, 2023, and other interviews which have been widely shared on social media.
Fauci, however, never said "Trump did everything I told him to do" and neither did such a claim appear in a Trump ad.
Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was a leading member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force set up by the Trump administration.
In October 2020, the Trump reelection campaign put out an ad that boasted about the White House's response to COVID-19 in 2020. During the ad a clip of Fauci plays, saying "I can't imagine that ... anybody could be doing more."
Newsweek could find no other campaign ad from October 2020 that featured Fauci, nor any with the quote shared by DeSantis.
Apart from the difference between Fauci's words and DeSantis' misquote, the quote as heard in the ad was misleading too. It was taken from an interview between Fauci and Fox News in late March 2020, in which he discussed the White House response to the pandemic.
"I'm down at the White House virtually every day with the task force. I'm connected by phone throughout the day and into the night," Fauci said.
"When I say night, I'm talking 12, 1, 2 in the morning. I'm not the only one. There's a whole group of us that are doing that. It's every single day.
"So I can't imagine that under any circumstances, that anybody could be doing more. I mean, obviously we're fighting a formidable enemy, this virus. This virus is a serious issue here."
Fauci would later speak out against his quotes being used in the Trump ad, telling CNN they were taken out of context.
"In my nearly five decades of public service, I have never publicly endorsed any political candidate," he said.
"The comments attributed to me without my permission in the GOP campaign ad were taken out of context from a broad statement I made months ago about the efforts of federal public health officials."
Newsweek has contacted a media representative for DeSantis via email for comment.
The Ruling
False.
Anthony Fauci never appeared in a Trump campaign ad bragging that the former president did whatever he told him to do, as Ron DeSantis claims.
The ad DeSantis referred to did, however, contain a quote that Fauci said was taken out of context by the Trump re-election campaign.
FACT CHECK BY Newsweek's Fact Check team
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
