At a rally in Florida Sunday, Trump suggested he could fire top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci after the election.

Trump supporters: “Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci!”

President Donald Trump: “Don’t tell anybody, but let me wait ’til a little bit after the election.”

This comes after The Washington Post reported Fauci said the pandemic would only get worse in the U.S. and that Joe Biden’s campaign “is taking [the pandemic] seriously from a public health perspective,” while Trump is prioritizing “reopening the country.”

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Video Transcript

- A bit of a back and forth between Dr. Anthony Fauci and the White House over the weekend. Not necessarily anything new, but President Trump really got the crowd fired up yesterday with these fire Fauci chants. what's behind all that?

- Yeah one of those rallies, he basically responded the fire Fauci chant. Saying that wait until after the election. And seemingly hinting that he would be, perhaps, maybe getting rid of Fauci. But we know that's a stressed relationship. But to me that does point out one interesting point here when we think about the next step in this recovery. That really the market's been focusing in on whenever we see down days, it tends to do with spikes in cases.

But also a lot of hope to the vaccine trials. But a big overlooked piece of that is how important Fauci is to getting Americans to actually receive that vaccine should it get approved. When you look at the Morning Consult poll out last month, it was Dr. Fauci that showed registered voters would be more likely to get vaccinated if he, Dr. Fauci, said that it would be safe to do so. 47%, much higher than the 25% even assigned to the head of the FDA, Dr. Stephen Hahn. So when you think about that, I mean wiping Fauci out from the administration, obviously there's a lot of question marks around whether President Trump would even be able to fire him.

But it would be an important voice out there in really getting Americans comfortable with the idea of a vaccine. And really seeing that recovery come along. And that's just one of the points here and why it might be important. Because we know he is so important on that front.

- Well and to that point, you know we should provide some context here, which is that the president was going after Dr. Fauci on the back of these comments he gave to the Washington Post. Where he had a pretty grim message, you're saying that all the stars are aligned in the wrong places.

Talking about this current wave that we're seeing of COVID cases. We're coming on the back of 98,000 new cases in one single day on Friday, which is a new record. And he said the country could surpass 100,000 new cases in the coming week. So Dr. Fauci really sort of putting out that message. Bracing the country for more bad news to come. Especially given the uptick that we've seen over the last few weeks.

- It's an awkward back and forth. I mean it's been an awkward scene to play out here. Seemingly Dr. Fauci in a tough spot here trying to say, look things aren't going. And it's his job to really put that out there. And we've seen the back and forth play out, it's created some confusion. Of course Joe Biden has stressed that he would hope, if he does win this election, that he would keep Dr. Fauci in the position he's been in. To really be the voice of all the facts and data that's been coming out on the Coronavirus pandemic front to keep Americans informed.

And it's been one of those things, you know it's a big question mark as to what happens on the other side of the election. But President Trump not forgoing the opportunity to use him as a piece to rile up the crowd on the last few hours here on the campaign trail. But obviously, as that poll shows, very important in terms of confidence on the vaccine trials as we continue to wait that data on that front.

- Yeah no question you have to wonder how much of that is politics. We shall see, we have just less than 24 hours until voters go to the polls.