Fauci Says He Isn't Endorsing Trump's Reelection Despite Being Included In POTUS Ad

Dr. Anthony Fauci slammed President Donald Trump's reelection campaign for using his words out of context in a new advertisement.

The Trump campaign's ad features Fauci, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director, praising the president's handling of the novel coronavirus. The clips in the ad were taken from an interview in March, at the outset of the pandemic in the U.S.

U.S. top infectious disease expert said he never gave his permission for the recent commercial and said his comments were 'taken out of context."

"In my nearly five decades of public service, I have never publicly endorsed any political candidate. The comments attributed to me without my permission in the GOP campaign ad were taken out of context from a broad statement I made months ago about the efforts of federal public health officials," Fauci said in a statement to CNN.

The commercial, which was released Saturday, is running in the critical battleground state of Michigan. In the 30-second video, Fauci can be heard saying, "I can't imagine that … anyone could be doing more" as it touted the Trump administration's personal experience with coronavirus and boasted its response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Trump campaign released the commercial less than a week after the president was discharged from the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. He received treatment for COVID-19, which has infected over 7.9 million Americans and claimed the lives of more than 219,000.

The comment from the commercial was taken from an interview Fauci had with Fox News in March, where he praised the work that he and other members of the coronavirus task force had done in response to the pandemic. Fauci and the president often have been at odds over how to handle the crisis.

"We've never had a threat like this. The coordinated response has been...There are a number of adjectives to describe it -- impressive, I think is one of them. We're talking about all hands on deck. I, as one of many people on a team, I'm not the only person," Fauci said during an interview on "Life, Liberty & Levin."

"Since the beginning, that we even recognized what this was, I have been devoting almost full time on this. I'm down at the White House virtually every day with the task force. It's every single day. So, I can't imagine that under any circumstances that anybody could be doing more," he added.

Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, fired back at Fauci's comments and claimed the words spoken were "accurate and directly from Fauci's mouth."

"These are Dr. Fauci's own words. The video is from a nationally broadcast television interview in which Dr. Fauci was praising the work of the Trump Administration," Murtaugh said. "The words spoken are accurate and directly from Dr. Fauci's mouth. As Dr. Fauci recently testified in the Senate, President Trump took the virus seriously from the beginning, acted quickly, and saved lives."