While it is true that administration officials did not endorse mask-wearing in the initial stage of the U.S. coronavirus outbreak, the CDC began recommending the use of cloth masks when outside the home by early April.

Fauci acknowledged in June that the administration was slow to encourage the mitigation measure because of concerns among the public health community regarding a shortage of personal protective equipment in the U.S.

Trump’s mention of the World Health Organization appears to refer to a statement made last week by a Covid-19 special envoy for the United Nations agency, who urged countries against using lockdowns as the “primary means of control of this virus.”

The U.S., however, implemented only a scattershot collection of lockdown orders earlier this year — with Trump declining to issue a nationwide mandate and leaving it to local and state leaders to announce their own restrictions.

Fauci himself told CNN in an interview Monday that officials “are not talking about shutting down” when advocating public health measures, saying: “Let’s get that off the table.”

Trump did announce a ban on travel from China in January. But his travel restrictions came after the coronavirus had already begun rampaging across China, and they did not accompany broader federal efforts to prepare the U.S. for the coming pandemic.

Additionally, Trump’s travel ban included exemptions that reportedly allowed nearly 40,000 people to enter the U.S. on direct flights from China.

As for Trump’s assertion that he saved 2 million Americans, British researchers reported in March that the coronavirus could result in the deaths of as many of 2.2 million people in the U.S.

But that model predicted the death toll would only reach such heights if the U.S. took no action whatsoever to halt the disease’s spread, an unrealistic scenario.

Trump has repeatedly touted the earlier, more dire forecast of coronavirus deaths to argue his administration’s response has been a success.

Trump’s latest broadside against Fauci represents yet another effort by the White House to cast doubt on the credibility of one of the administration’s most trusted public health officials.

But the tweet from the president also seemingly undermines the 30-second ad his campaign released Saturday, which prominently features Fauci assessing Trump’s handling of the coronavirus.

“I can’t imagine that … anybody could be doing more,” Fauci says in the ad — a quote he claimed Sunday was included “without my permission” and “taken out of context” from a broader statement about the federal pandemic response.

The Trump campaign has defended its decision to feature Fauci in the ad, as has the president, who tweeted Sunday: “They are indeed Dr. Fauci’s own words.”

Fauci has continued to express his displeasure with the ad this week, emphasizing Monday that he has never endorsed a political candidate during his more than three decades as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

“To take a completely out of context statement and put it in which is obviously a political campaign ad, I thought was really very disappointing,” he told CNN.

Trump’s feud with Fauci comes as the president’s reelection team is facing pushback for featuring his two highest-ranking Pentagon officials in another campaign ad online.

The ad uses an image of Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley — seated together in the Situation Room while watching the raid on ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi last October — to link to the campaign’s voter sign-up page.

The Trump campaign did not seek Milley’s approval to feature him in the ad, POLITICO reported Monday, and the military has strict rules against uniformed service members participating in political campaigns.

In an interview, Tenney railed against Brindisi as a faux-moderate with a record that doesn’t match his centrist brand. But she conceded that she would be in a better position if she could match Brindisi’s TV ad spending. He has so far reserved $1.6 million in ads to her $200,000, according to media buying data.

Outside groups on both sides are heavily invested in the race. The National Republican Congressional Committee and its ally, the Congressional Leadership Fund, have dropped a whopping $8.4 million on ads. They are attempting to push Tenney over the finish line, a strategy that underscores a benefit of Democrats’ fundraising edge.

“People think I raised their cable rates, that I’m giving Spectrum a tax cut that gave them a $9 billion windfall,” Tenney said in an interview. “Nobody’s fact-checking that in the media. We’re trying to get it out there with a fraction of the resources that he has. He’s running nonstop negative ads making me out to be a monster on every issue, that I’m against people with pre-existing conditions.”

Candidates purchase ads at cheaper rates than super PACs and they can also drive their own messaging. Tenney, who voted in 2017 for the House GOP’s replacement for the 2010 health care law, bemoaned the fact that she can’t invest more in digital ads or put more positive spots on the air.

Top Democratic operatives appear more worried about holding a rural seat in southern New Mexico held by Torres Small, another vulnerable freshman. Recent polling shows a virtually tied race, and Republicans are dumping money on ads casting her as an acolyte of Speaker Nancy Pelosi who won’t support the state’s oil and gas industry.

But like in the Brindisi-Tenney race, Torres Small is also facing a rematch against Yvette Herrell, the woman she beat in 2018 — and Democrats are hammering Herrell over the same ethics issues they litigated two years ago. And Herrell is also leaning heavily on outside help: Torres Small is outspending her opponent by a nearly five-to-one margin on TV ads.

Republicans’ outlays against a handful of the most beatable Democrats have hampered their ability to craft a serious path back to the majority. Democrats have seized on their cash advantage to contest districts in deep-red territory, forcing the GOP to retrench and protect incumbents and open seats.

As of mid-October, national Republicans are playing more defense than offense, airing TV ads in 28 GOP-held districts compared to 25 Democratic-held ones, according to a POLITICO analysis of data from Advertising Analytics, a TV tracking firm.

“We’re able to flip the tables and focus on expanding the map. And I do think that that’s a shift,” said Abby Curran Horrell, the executive director of House Majority PAC, Democrats’ main House super PAC. “They are tied down in districts that I think they expected that they would be able to win easily. But it is not that type of year.”

Meanwhile, Democrats are feeling more optimistic about a Richmond, Va.-area seat held by Spanberger. Republicans have trotted out a failed 2018 attack slamming the congresswoman for teaching at a Saudi-funded school in Virginia, dubbing it “Terror High.” And in Utah, GOP operatives privately concede that Democratic ads bashing their nominee, Burgess Owens, over bankruptcy and debt are helping McAdams.

One bright spot for the GOP lies in Western Minnesota, where longtime Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson, facing massive headwinds, has slipped in some private polling. The GOP recruit, former Lt. Gov. Michelle Fischbach, is well-funded and plans to ride Trump’s coattails in a seat he won by 31 points.

Ironically, Democrats are growing increasingly nervous about two members in seats that Clinton won by double digits in 2016: Rep. TJ Cox in California’s Central Valley and Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell in South Florida.

In the closing weeks, national Republicans have begun to hone in on crime, warning in countless ads that Democrats plan to “defund the police.” And they are most optimistic about this line of attack in the Staten Island-based district with a heavy law-enforcement presence, where Rose is locked in a tight race with state Assemblymember Nicole Malliotakis.

In most well-educated suburban districts, Trump is proving just as burdensome as he was in the 2018 midterms. In Oklahoma’s 5th District, Horn shocked the political world by upsetting an unprepared incumbent. Trump won the seat by 13 points, but some private polling now indicates a tight presidential contest there.

It’s still a top pickup opportunity for Republicans. But they don’t have a clear lead yet, despite millions in outside spending and a more compelling and well-funded nominee in state Sen. Stephanie Bice.

“If we don’t win Congressional District 5, there’s probably a lot of other places we don’t win,” said Chad Alexander, a former Oklahoma state GOP chair. “So that would be a very bad night for Republicans.”

Fear of Trump remains high in GOP circles, and Republicans know that their fate is inexorably tied to the president’s own results. Yet at the moment, it’s not clear Trump has the juice within his party to cut a big spending deal with Democrats.

Meanwhile, there is near unanimous support for Barrett, the type of Supreme Court nominee that Senate Republicans would have confirmed for a President Rubio or a President Cruz. So some in the GOP say they should take the win in front of them and wait until after the election to pass a coronavirus relief package that would split the party — even if it could boost both Trump’s flailing re-election campaign and the GOP battle to keep the Senate.

“The reason [Barrett’s nomination is ] so exciting to Republicans is the uncertainty about what’s going to happen on Nov. 3. Here there is certainty that… we can get this across the finish line,” said Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), who introduced Barrett at her confirmation hearing on Monday. “There’s so much uncertainty politically, not only associated with the election, and also what can we agree on” for stimulus.

Braun said that the Barrett confirmation would be a cornerstone of Trump’s legacy in his first term. Some of his colleagues are increasingly worried there won’t be a second term, and that Trump’s trajectory threatens their majority as well.

“It’s a trend and it’s going in the wrong direction,” said one Republican senator of Trump’s polling. “I think Republicans have a better chance of keeping the Senate than Donald Trump has of winning the election.”

Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) slammed Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows during a Saturday conference call to discuss the $1.8 trillion stimulus proposal they floated to Pelosi, saying it would be “the death knell for our majority if Pelosi gets this win,” according to sources on the call.

When asked Monday about her concerns with the White House’s position in the Covid relief talks, Blackburn said she instead backed a $300 billion bill crafted by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Democrats blocked debate on that measure a month ago, rejecting it as way too little to help the slumping U.S. economy.

“I like the package that we had on the floor,” Blackburn told reporters following the first day of Barrett’s confirmation hearings. “It was the right approach.”

Blackburn, however, denied there was any serious divide with Trump or the White House.

“There is a lot that we agree on and we’re going to do just fine this week,” the Tennessee Republican said following the first day of hearings on Barrett’s nomination. Blackburn serves on the Judiciary Committee.

With calls for more help coming from Trump, business leaders and average Americans, Senate Republicans are discussing possibly holding a vote on another GOP aid bill next week, a reflection that the party needs to show it’s still trying to address the biggest crisis in the country, according to people familiar with internal party discussions. Democrats have rejected any piecemeal legislation, and Republicans have tried to shift the blame onto them for the long delay in a new coronavirus assistance package, though Pelosi first passed another bill in May.

“Once you take a look at the things Nancy Pelosi is promoting, both in terms of the price and the policy, we have a lot of concerns about that,” Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Barrasso (Wyo.) said in an interview on Monday. “But we’ve put forth what we thought was a good faith effort, and [Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer and the Democrats voted no, every one of them… We’re united on that.”

Of course, after Republicans spent the day attacking Democrats for obstructing a smaller bill, Trump turned his attention to his own party on Twitter: “Republicans should be strongly focused on completing a wonderful stimulus package for the American People!”

Yet Trump has only limited influence in the legislative sphere and his sinking political fortunes are further undercutting his agenda. The president seems to pay little heed to what’s happening on Capitol Hill on a daily basis, but then will claim that a major health care or tax cut package is going to be heading to his desk soon, despite the fact that nothing of the kind is even being considered by Congress.

Trump’s current political standing seems to have hurt his ability to convince Senate Republicans to embrace more deficit spending. Some on Saturday’s conference call between Senate Republicans, Mnuchin and Meadows saw the frosty reception for the senior administration officials as a reflection of a party becoming less and less deferential to the president.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany insisted that “Senate Republicans will ultimately come along with what the president wants.” But if it’s anything close to the $1.8 trillion discussed by the Trump administration and Democrats, Braun surmised: “I can’t vote for it.”

“The only ones who will come up looking good at it are the Democrats,” said Braun, who criticized proposals to send undocumented immigrants stimulus checks and expand some Obamacare coverage.

Even the handling of Barrett’s nomination became a point of contention between Senate Republicans and Trump on Monday. Within minutes of the hearing’s start, Trump essentially demanded that his party fast-forward through the planned four days of hearings and confirm her, and then immediately pass a relief bill.

“The Republicans are giving the Democrats a great deal of time, which is not mandated, to make their self serving statements relative to our great new future Supreme Court Justice. Personally, I would pull back, approve, and go for STIMULUS for the people!!!” Trump tweeted.

The Judiciary panel’s chairman Lindsey Graham, whose South Carolina Senate seat is now vulnerable due to his alliance with Trump, quickly brushed off Trump’s comments.

“With all due respect to the president, the committee is following the traditions of the committee,” Graham (R-S.C.) said. “It’s good for the country to have this hearing.”

Marianne LeVine contributed to this report.