TAKE AWAY THE LIES AND THERE IS NO DONALD:

Trump, for instance, has repeatedly insisted that the coronavirus "is going to disappear," including as recently as last week. But in response to a question from Sanders, Fauci made clear that is not going to happen.

"When you talk about 'will this virus just disappear' -- and I've said publicly many times, that is just not gonna happen because it's such a highly transmissible virus," he said. "And even if we get better control over several months, it is likely that there will be virus someone on this planet that will eventually get back to us."

Fauci also agreed with a question Sanders asked him about whether he concurs with experts who have concluded the US coronavirus death toll, which has reached more than 80,000, represents an undercount -- comments undercutting arguments Trump and his advisers have reportedly embraced in private about official death numbers being inflated.

"Most of us feel that the number of deaths are likely higher than that number, because given the situation particularly in New York City when they were really strapped with a very serious challenge to their health care system, that there may have been people who died at home who did have Covid who were not counting as Covid, because they never really got to the hospital," Fauci said.

When Trump hasn't been engaged in wishful thinking or denialism, he's tried to shift blame for the US's coronavirus woes, going as far as to absurdly attack former President Barack Obama for not developing tests for a virus that didn't even exist at the time he was president.

During Tuesday's hearing, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) asked Fauci if Obama did anything that "made the likelihood of creating a vaccine less likely." Fauci quickly dismissed the question -- and, by implication, Trump's talking point.

"No, senator, not at all," Fauci said.

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