After Fauci said he's not surprised Trump got COVID-19, president calls top disease expert a 'disaster'

President Donald Trump blasted Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious disease expert, as a "disaster" on Monday, a day after Fauci said in an interview that it came as no shock to him when the president tested positive for COVID-19 because Trump regularly eschewed the use of masks "as a statement of strength." 

"People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots," Trump said.

Later Monday, the president also posted a tweet criticizing Fauci. 

A day earlier, Fauci had been asked in a CBS News "60 Minutes" interview if he was surprised the president contracted the coronavirus. 

"Absolutely not," Fauci replied.

"I was worried that he was going to get sick when I saw him in a completely precarious situation of crowded – no separation between people, and almost nobody wearing a mask," he said, referring to the White House Rose Garden eventwhere Trump nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. "When I saw that on TV, I said, 'Oh my goodness. Nothing good can come outta that, that's gotta be a problem.' And then, sure enough, it turned out to be a superspreader event." 

During a conference call with his campaign staff on Monday, Trump said Fauci drops a "bomb" every time he goes on television, but it would be "a bigger bomb if you fire him. This guy's a disaster." 

Trump added that people don't want to hear about the pandemic and are saying "just leave us alone" to public health experts like Fauci, who has served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984.