Trump says top coronavirus expert Fauci is ‘a little bit of an alarmist’ –

Dr Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, has appeared on NBC’s Meet The Press.

He is asked whether he has been told to fire or demote Anthony Fauci by anyone in the White House. “Nobody has asked me to do that and I find that concept unimaginable,” he says. “And I am amused that everybody’s calling me Dr Fauci boss because his real boss is his wife, Christine Grady. She might have something to say about that.”

Collins also expresses confusion at the fact that mask wearing has turned into a political question.

“Well, it is bizarre that we have turned the mask wearing into something political,” he says. “Imagine you were an alien coming to the planet Earth, and looking around, looking at the scientific data or going from various place to place and looking to see who’s wearing masks.

“You would be totally astounded, puzzled, amazed, you’d wonder, ‘What is going on here? How could it be that something as basic as a public health action, that we have very strong evidence can help, seems to attach to people’s political party?’”

The interview ends with Trump being asked how he will remember his years in the White House. He strikes a familiar, self-pitying tone.

“I think I was very unfairly treated,” he says. “From before I even won I was investigation by a bunch of thieves, crooks. It was an illegal investigation.”

Trump says he will win the election in November against an opponent who is “mentally shot”.

Trump then continues his tactics of depicting Biden as a tool of the “radical left”.

“He will destroy this country, but it won’t be him, it will be the radical left – the same ideology that took over Venezuela… they now have no water or medicine … the same will happen here.”

Disturbingly, he then refuses to say he will accept the result of the election. “Can you give a direct answer you will accept the election?” asks Wallace.

“I have to see … I have to see. No, I’m not going to just say yes,” says the president.

Trump says he is “not a big fan” of Fox, and says the channel has changed since the death of its former CEO Roger Ailes.

Attention turns to the recent book by the president’s niece, Mary, that depicts Trump and his wider family as dysfunctional.

“She was not exactly a family favorite,” he says. “We didn’t have a lot of respect or like for her. I would’ve never said that except she writes a book that’s so stupid and so vicious and it’s a lie.”

He says he objected to criticism of…