The coronavirus task force gets its kumbaya moment

President Trump and Tony Fauci extended olive branches to one another during a White House press briefing Monday, putting to rest speculation that Trump would move to fire the nation's top infectious disease researcher. "I'm not firing him," Trump said. "I think he's a wonderful guy!"

It was Trump, however, who sparked the rumor mill Sunday night by amplifying a tweet that included a #FireFauci hashtag. Trump claimed Monday that while he had seen the hashtag — "I notice everything," he said — he didn't necessarily agree with it. "I think controversy's a good thing, not a bad thing," Trump said. "But I want it to be honest controversy."

The reconciliation came the day after Fauci told CNN that had the federal government "started mitigation earlier, you could have saved lives" — remarks that were widely read as criticizing Trump's coronavirus response. Monday, Fauci walked the comment back, emphasizing that he'd been responding to a hypothetical question, and that the president had issued social distancing recommendations as soon as public health officials encouraged him to formally do so. And he bristled when a reporter asked if he was apologizing at Trump's behest. "Everything I do is [done] voluntarily," Fauci said. "Please, don't even imply that."

Democrats slam Trump's coronavirus response
Fresh off of President Trump’s feud with the World Health Organization over his Covid-19 travel ban, the Democratic advocacy group Protect Our Care is out with a new ad, criticizing Trump’s ban. Curiously enough, the ad doesn’t attack the ban on its merits, despite criticisms from public health experts that travel bans don’t work. Instead, it argues Trump was too slow in enacting the ban — and that U.S. officials allowed thousands of travelers from China to enter the country even after the restriction was in place.

It’s the latest in an onslaught of attacks from Protect Our Care and its so-called “coronavirus war room.” The group has previously run ads in 2020 battleground states criticizing Trump’s response, and run attack ads against certain vulnerable Republicans, arguing that their positions on health care have made constituents more vulnerable to the coronavirus. My colleague Lev Facher also has a story on how they and other Democratic groups are racing to make 2020 a referendum on the Trump administration’s coronavirus response.

Check out the new ad, which ran on Fox News and MSNBC Monday morning, here.

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