Trump's Fauci feud keeps campaign focus on COVID-19
This is now an actual attack line that Trump is deploying against former Biden.
"He wants to listen to Dr. Fauci," Trump told a crowd in Arizona Monday afternoon, the mention of Dr. Anthony Fauci's name drawing boos.
It takes head-spinning logic to cast Trump's feud with Fauci as a winning campaign message for an incumbent who is down in the polls. The campaign is continuing to air ads that feature Fauci -- out of context -- appearing to applaud the president's decisions on COVID-19, even while Trump calls him a "disaster" and his fellow health officials "idiots."
This fight, though, only makes more obvious what the campaign is about. With cases surging in battleground states and beyond, and with the president himself back on the trail from his own illness for only a week, Trump's assertion that "people are tired of COVID" is pretty clearly true -- with whatever meaning one might impose on those words.
New ABC News/Washington Post polling from North Carolina, out Tuesday morning, reinforces how much the coronavirus has cost the president credibility and political standing.
It’s Biden 49, Trump 48 in one of the president's must-win states, with Biden leading by 34 points among self-described moderates. He captures 68% support among those worried about catching the coronavirus.
One last debate and two weeks of rallies will give Trump more chances to try to change the campaign subject. For now, and once again, the campaign that could have been about so many different things remains focused on one very big thing.
-ABC News’ Political Director Rick Klein