Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R-FL) campaign attacked former President Donald Trump for not firing Dr. Anthony Fauci.

In a video highlighting Trump’s claim to fame on The Celebrity Apprentice as the man who would tell contestants, “You’re fired,” the campaign needed the former president over his purported skittishness about terminating Fauci.

GAVIN NEWSOM’S 2023-24 BUDGET RECEIVES PUSHBACK FROM LOCAL LAWMAKERS ON KEY ISSUES

The spot began with a compilation of Trump uttering his famous line, “You’re fired,” during his Celebrity Apprentice days. Then it switched to Trump explaining his apprehension about terminating Fauci.

“A lot of people ask me that question, and I did it right because if you do fire him, you’re going to have a firestorm on the Left again,” Trump said on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures.

Fauci helped spearhead Trump’s COVID-19 response during the thick of the pandemic. DeSantis bashed him as the poster child for pandemic mandates and suppression measures. DeSantis later became an outspoken critic of the COVID-19 containment policies, which helped catapult him to GOP stardom.

DeSantis praised Fauci during the early stages of the pandemic before souring on him. The governor has leaned on Trump’s pandemic response in recent days as a means of juxtaposing himself with Trump. The governor has also sought to cast himself as a more disciplined executive of conservative policies than Trump.

“I think he did great for three years, but when he turned the country over to Fauci in March of 2020, that destroyed millions of people’s lives,” DeSantis told radio host Glenn Beck last month.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Fauci stepped down as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases as well as his role as the chief medical adviser to the president late last year.

Trump touts a roughly 31-point lead over DeSantis in the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate. The Washington Examiner contacted the Trump campaign for comment.

Original Location: DeSantis campaign hits Trump for not telling Fauci ‘You’re fired’

Washington Examiner Videos