TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) - President Donald Trump came out swinging Monday against Dr. Anthony Fauci, the press and polls that show him trailing Democrat Joe Biden in key battleground states in a closing message two weeks out from Election Day
On the third day of a western campaign swing, Trump was hoping for the type of last-minute surge that gave him a come-from-behind victory four years ago. But his inconsistent message, another rise in virus cases and his attacks on experts like Fauci could undermine his final efforts to appeal to voters outside his most loyal base.
"I'm not running scared," Trump told reporters before taking off for Tucson, Arizona, for his fifth rally in three days. "I think I'm running angry. I'm running happy, and I'm running very content 'cause I've done a great job."
His travel comes as Trump plays defense in states he won four years ago, though the president insisted he was confident as he executed a packed schedule.
"We're going to win," he told campaign staff on a morning conference call from Las Vegas. He went on to acknowledge he "wouldn't have told you that maybe two or three weeks ago," referring to the days when he was hospitalized with COVID-19. But he said he felt better now than at any point in 2016.
"We're in the best shape we've ever been," he said.
Trump criticized his government's own scientific experts as too negative, even as his handling of the pandemic that has killed nearly 220,000 Americans remains a central issue to voters.
"People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots," Trump said of the government's top infectious disease expert. "Every time he goes on television, there's always a bomb. But there's a bigger bomb if you fire him. But Fauci's a disaster."
At a rally in Prescott, Arizona, Trump assailed Biden for pledging to heed the advice of scientific experts, saying his rival "wants to listen to Dr. Fauci."
The doctor is both respected and popular, and Trump's rejection of scientific advice on the pandemic has already drawn bipartisan condemnation.
At his rally, Trump also ramped up his attacks on the news media, singling out NBC's Kristen Welker, the moderator of the next presidential debate, as well as CNN for aggressively covering a pandemic that is now infecting tens of thousands of Americans every day.
Fauci, in an interview with CBS's "60 Minutes" that aired Sunday, said he was not surprised Trump contracted the virus after he held a series of large events with few face coverings.
"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," Fauci said of the president.
Tennessee GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander said, if more Americans had heeded Fauci's advice, "we'd have fewer cases of COVID-19, and it would be safer to go back to school and back to work and out to eat."
Biden was off the campaign trail Monday, but his campaign praised Fauci and criticized Trump for "reckless and negligent leadership" that "threatens to put more lives at risk."
"Trump's closing message in the final days of the 2020 race is to publicly mock Joe Biden for trusting science and to call Dr. Fauci, the leading public health official on COVID-19, a 'disaster' and other public health officials 'idiots,'" the campaign said.
Biden, meanwhile, was in Delaware for several days of preparation ahead of Thursday's final presidential debate. His running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, was returning to the campaign trail after several days in Washington after a close adviser tested positive for the coronavirus.