President Trump said it was “fortunate” that he didn’t follow the advice of Dr. Anthony Fauci, following the release of thousands of Fauci’s emails as part of a FOIA request by Buzzfeed.
“After seeing the emails, our Country is fortunate I didn’t do what Dr. Fauci wanted me to do,” Trump said in a statement.
Fauci “didn’t put an emphasis on speed of vaccine production because he thought it would take 3, 4, or maybe even 5 years to create,” Trump said. “I got it done in less than nine months with Operation Warp Speed. In retrospect, the vaccine is saving the world.”
“Also,” the former president added, “Dr. Fauci was totally against masks even I thought they would at least be helpful. He then changed his mind completely and became a radical masker!”
Trump also hinted at allegations that the coronavirus may have leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and was potentially created as a result of “gain-of-function” research, a process by which researchers make a virus more deadly or infectious. Dr. Richard Ebright, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University and biosafety expert, told National Review that the WIV conducted gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses in at least one study.
“What did Dr. Fauci know about ‘gain-of-function’ research, and when did he know it?” Trump said.
While Fauci has said that the U.S. “has not ever and does not now fund gain of function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology [WIV],” Elbright said that statement was “demonstrably false.”