The Margin: Anthony Fauci praises ‘classy’ Brad Pitt, who mocked President Trump for how he’s handled the coronavirus

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Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert in the U.S., earlier this month mused he’d like actor and two-time “sexiest man alive” award winner Brad Pitt to impersonate him should “Saturday Night Live” ever decide to lampoon the White House Coronavirus Task Force in a skit:

A couple of weeks later, that’s exactly what happened.

Brad Pitt, playing Fauci in an opener, called out President Trump for various comments made at the daily briefing, including claims that the coronavirus vaccine would be developed relatively soon.

“Relatively soon is an interesting phrase. Relative to the entire history of Earth, sure, the vaccine is going to come real fast,” Pitt’s Fauci said. “But if you were to tell a friend, ‘I’ll be over relatively soon’ and then showed up a year and a half later, well, your friend may be relatively pissed off.”

Pitt ended the sketch by putting the jokes aside, taking off his wig and saying thanks to health-care workers who continue to put their lives at risk in the fight against the coronavirus.

Here’s the full clip, which has been viewed more than 11 million times:

So, what does Fauci think of Pitt’s Fauci?

“I think he did a great job. He got the raspy-ness of my voice right, he got the had movements right,” he said during an interview with The Economic Club of Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. “He was really very funny. What he did at the end was a class act, when he took the wig off and thanked me and the health care workers. I’ve never met him but he really seems like he’s a classy guy.”

He added that Pitt could improve in one area: “He has to work a little on the Brooklyn accent.”

Trump, who generally doesn’t take too kindly to criticism, hasn’t made any public comments on Pitt’s portrayal of Fauci. Then again, maybe he hasn’t seen it, considering his stance on the show:

Unlike Fauci, Trump’s no fan of Brad Pitt, having called him a “little wise guy” after Pitt made some disparaging remarks in the president’s direction at the Academy Awards earlier this year.