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In a remarkable move with 15 days to go until Election Day, President Donald Trump on an all-staff campaign call Monday morning leveled his most aggressive attacks yet on Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert on the president’s own coronavirus task force, calling him a “disaster” while also outright dismissing the pandemic, saying Americans are “over COVID” as deaths near 220,000 in the United States and cases rise around the country. (Steakin, 10/19)

The president claimed that voters do not want to hear more from the country’s scientific leaders about the pandemic, responding angrily to a critical interview Sunday night with CBS’s “60 Minutes” by Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots,” Trump said in a call with his campaign staff Monday that was intended to instill confidence in his reelection bid two weeks before Election Day. He baselessly suggested that Fauci’s advice on how best to respond to the outbreak was so bad it would have led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands more people. (Scherer and Dawsey, 10/19)

Top infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci brushed off new criticism from President Trump on Monday, quoting "The Godfather" in a radio interview. In an interview with Southern California AM radio station KNX1070, Fauci was asked to respond to Trump reportedly calling him "a disaster" during a campaign call earlier in the day. (Seipel, 10/19)

Former Vice President Joe Biden slammed President Trump on Monday for calling Anthony Fauci a “disaster” and dismissing public health experts, accusing the president of “waving a white flag” in the country’s fight against the coronavirus pandemic. “Coronavirus infections are spiking across the country, but President Trump decided to attack Dr. Fauci again today as a ‘disaster’ and call public health experts ‘idiots’ instead of laying out a plan to beat this virus or heeding their advice about how we can save lives and get our economy moving again,” Biden said in a statement. (Greenwood, 10/19)

President Donald Trump and Joe Biden agree on one thing: The Democratic nominee trusts Anthony Fauci. Trump ridiculed Biden during a campaign rally on Monday afternoon in Prescott, Ariz., for saying he would heed the advice of scientific experts to combat the coronavirus even if it required ratcheting down certain economic activity. “You know, Biden wants to lock it down,” Trump said. “He wants to listen to Dr. Fauci. He wants to listen to Dr. Fauci.” “…yes,” Biden’s Twitter account quipped in response to the president’s line. The Biden campaign seemed gleeful to be linked with Fauci, who has continually rated as one of the most trusted voices in the country on Covid-19, according to numerous public opinion polls. (Niedzwiadek, 10/19)

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, defended Anthony Fauci on Monday after President Trump lashed out at the nation's top infectious disease expert. “Dr. Fauci is one of our country’s most distinguished public servants. ... If more Americans paid attention to his advice, we’d have fewer cases of COVID-19, and it would be safer to go back to school and back to work and out to eat," Alexander said in a statement. (Carney, 10/19)