Irked Trump retweets #FireFauci

Washington: Donald Trump hit out at Dr Anthony Fauci on Sunday night by retweeting a #FireFauci hashtag after the nation's top immunologist said his recommendation for a US shut down in February was ignored.

The President also wrote that he had banned flights from China 'long before people spoke up', seemingly in response to the criticism.

Trump retweeted a post from former congressional candidate DeAnna Lorraine who wrote: 'Fauci is now saying that had Trump listened to the medical experts earlier he could've saved more lives.

'Fauci was telling people on February 29th that there was nothing to worry about and it posed no threat to the US public at large. Time to #FireFauci.'

In a second tweet Trump slammed The New York Times for a piece published in the newspaper on Saturday that claims the president repeatedly played down the seriousness of the virus and had been warned about it multiple times by top White House officials.

'The @nytimes story is a Fake, just like the "paper" itself. I was criticized for moving too fast when I issued the China Ban, long before most others wanted to do so,' Trump tweeted.

The president then wrote: ''@SecAzar told me nothing until later, and Peter Navarro memo was same as Ban (see his statements). Fake News!' the president added. Trump stated that Health Secretary Alex Azar only warned him after he had imposed the China ban at the end of January.

However, it has been reported that Azar briefed him on January 18 while the President was at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida - but Trump kept interrupting because he was more interested in vaping measures.

Trump also said imposed the China ban after senior White House aide Peter Navarro issued a memo in January accurately outlining how bad the pandemic would be.