Trump attacks Dr. Fauci and 'these idiots' who keep talking about COVID-19 in campaign call

President Donald Trump on Monday once again lashed out at America's top infectious disease expert.

During a call with campaign staff, the president bitterly complained that there has been so much attention paid to the COVID-19 pandemic, which so far has killed 220,000 Americans in eight months while simultaneously upending the American economy and putting millions out of work.

"People are tired of COVID," the president ranted during the call, according to the New York Times' Maggie Haberman. "People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots, all these idiots who got it wrong... Fauci's a nice guy, he's been here for 500 years."

The president also called Fauci "a disaster" and lamented that he would receive lots of negative press for firing him.

"If I listened to [Fauci], we’d have 500,000 deaths," the president fumed.

Trump for the last month has been trying to claim that America is "rounding the corner" on COVID-19, even though infections from the disease have been surging and are now averaging more than 50,000 a day.