Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, added that his contact with the President was far less frequent.
Their last interaction was May 18, when Trump invited Fauci to provide a medical context during a long-distance conference with the country’s governor. The last Task Force met on May 28 and finally held a White House press conference on May 22.
The news that the couple hasn’t communicated in two weeks comes during a critical period in the US coronavirus response because all 50 countries have eased steps to keep social distance even as the number of virus deaths continues to increase. On Monday, at least 1.79 million Americans had contracted the virus and at least 104,300 had died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
Throughout the pandemic, Fauci rarely became an open source of honesty within the White House coronavirus task force, holding fast to the President who was sometimes too optimistic.
This was a full display last week when he called for a cautious approach to reopening the US and pleading with Americans to wear masks in public, comments that contradicted Trump’s push to make America quickly return to normalcy.
“I want to protect myself and protect others, and also because I want to make it a symbol for people to see that it’s something you have to do,” Fauci said during an interview on CNN’s “Newsroom.”
But his willingness to refute Trump has drawn constant criticism from the President’s allies in the conservative media and sparked questions about the couple’s working relationship.
In April, a conservative commentator called for Fauci to be fired after he said in a CNN interview that more could be done to prevent the spread of the corona virus. Trump retweeted, but then pushed back the idea that he might fire Fauci.
“Today I walked in, I heard I would fire him. I did not fire him. I thought he was an extraordinary man,” the president told reporters at a White House daily meeting at the time.
Trump said the retweet was okay, and the tweet was “someone’s opinion.” The president said he saw the “Fauci fire” hashtag before he retweeted it.
“This is someone’s view. Not everyone is happy with Anthony. Not everyone is happy with everyone,” he said. “But I’ll tell you, we have done work that no one has ever done.”
This story has been updated with additional background information.
Maegan Vazquez from CNN contributed to this report.
