Trump threatened to fire CDC’s chief of respiratory diseases in February: report

President Trump nearly fired a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) official after she said in February that the agency was preparing for a pandemic, according to The Wall Street Journal.

“It’s not a question of if this will happen but when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illnesses,” Nancy Messonnier, the director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said on Feb. 25. 

According to the Journal, Trump was angry with Messonnier after her statement resulted in a dip in the stock market. The same day, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said the virus was “contained” in the U.S. 

The next day Trump repeatedly said he did not think an outbreak was “inevitable” and appointed Vice President Pence as the head of the administration’s coronavirus task force.

Democrats have speculated that Trump was unhappy with Messonnier, who has not appeared at White House briefings since February. Ron Klain, a former aide for former Vice President Joe Biden who served as former President Obama’s Ebola czar in 2014, said Messonnier faced “immediate blowback” for sounding the alarm about the coronavirus. 

“Starting the next day, Dr. Messonnier no longer appeared at public briefings of the White House coronavirus task force. The president and the White House sent a clear message to scientists in the government — there would be a price for speaking out and speaking up,” Klain said in a campaign video for Biden.

In recent weeks Trump has also been speculated to be unhappy with Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert who frequently appears at White House briefings. Like other public health officials, Fauci’s messaging often counters the administration’s narrative. 

The president made headlines on April 12 when he retweeted a post by former GOP congressional candidate DeAnna Lorraine, who blasted Fauci for suggesting that restrictive federal measures, if implemented earlier in the U.S., could have saved more lives amid the coronavirus outbreak, using the hashtag #FireFauci.