Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour(WASHINGTON) -- President Donald Trump is not considering firing Dr. Anthony Fauci, his top expert on infectious disease, even after appearing to publicly rebuke Fauci in a retweet Sunday night, according to White House spokesman Hogan Gidley Monday afternoon.

"This media chatter is ridiculous -- President Trump is not firing Dr. Fauci," Gidley said in a statement. "The President’s tweet clearly exposed media attempts to maliciously push a falsehood about his China decision in an attempt to rewrite history.

"It was Democrats and the media who ignored Coronavirus choosing to focus on impeachment instead, and when they finally did comment on the virus it was to attack President Trump for taking the bold decisive action to save American lives by cutting off travel from China and from Europe. Dr. Fauci has been and remains a trusted advisor to President Trump," Gidley said.

Trump himself said later Monday he's "not firing" Fauci.

Fauci said Sunday that the Trump administration "could have saved lives" had firm social distancing guidelines been enforced earlier, but there was "pushback about shutting things down."

"We make a recommendation. Often, the recommendation is taken. Sometimes, it's not," Fauci told CNN Sunday, calling it a complicated decision. "It is what it is. We are where we are right now."

At Monday's White House briefing, Fauci walked back the comments, saying said he used a "poor choice of words" in answering a "hypothetical question" and "that was taken as a way that maybe somehow something was at fault.”

Trump retweeted a former Republican congressional candidate's attack on Fauci, including the hashtag "#FireFauci," amid a flurry of tweets Sunday night, sparking questions around Fauci's fate on the task force as the president continues to reject any criticism of his response to the pandemic that has now killed more than 22,000 Americans.

With the White House hoping to reopen parts of the country by May 1, and Trump set to announce as early as Tuesday what he's called the "opening up the country council," some experts, such as Fauci, have recommended a "rolling reentry" into normal lives, as the president weighs what he calls "the biggest decision of my life."

While Trump and many in his administration are eager to find ways to get Americans back to work, they'll likely face some limitations, as several governors have already instituted stay-at-home orders through May.

Fauci tries to clarify answer to what he calls a 'hypothetical question' about 'saved lives'

President Trump opened Monday’s briefing by tossing within minutes to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top expert on infectious diseases, who said in a Sunday talk show interview that the administration "could have saved lives" if the U.S. had acted sooner.

Fauci said he wanted to clarify his answer then to what he called “a hypothetical question," saying answering them can sometimes get you "into some difficulty."

"The nature of the hypothetical question was if, in fact, we had mitigated earlier, could lives have been saved? And the answer to my question was, as I always do, and I am doing right now, perfectly honestly saying, yes. I mean, obviously," Fauci said, before saying that Trump took his first recommendation as soon as it was given.

His answer, he said, was "taken as a way that maybe somehow something was at fault."

“The first and only time that Dr. Birx and I went in and formally made a recommendation to the president to actually have a quote ‘shutdown’ in the sense of not really shutdown, but to really have strong mitigation,” Fauci emphasized.

“Obviously there would be concerns by some that, in fact, that might have some negative consequence. Nonetheless, the president listened to the recommendation,” he said.

Asked why he was making the clarification, Fauci responded testily, saying, "Everything I do is voluntarily. Don't even imply that."

'#FireFauci' follow up: White House says Trump takes suggestions of Fauci and Birx

ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl has asked the White House whether the president's "#FireFauci" retweet was an indication he is sending Fauci a message -- or if he no longer has confidence in him.

A senior White House aide responded: "There has been three mitigation recommendations made to the President by his team of doctors and advisors. All recommendations have been met with immediate implementation orders and no ambiguity. Any suggestion that the President ignored Dr. Fauci or Dr. Birx's mitigation plan is incorrect."

Trump says that his authority to open country overpowers governors' orders

After repeating for weeks that the federal government is a “backup” to the states as the U.S. battles the coronavirus outbreak, President Donald Trump tweeted Monday morning that “for many good reasons” it is “the decision of the president” to reopen states, even if governors or local officials have their own conflicting orders in place.

The president has repeatedly said that when it comes to personal protective equipment and ventilators, states should be responsible for procuring their own supplies, but he has not dictated whether states must enact stay-at-home orders or business closures. Most governors, instead, have taken matters into their own hands, with more than 40 enacting some form of stay-at-home order to date.

Several of those local orders extend beyond the May 1 reopening that the White House is said to be eyeing.

Supreme Court to teleconference oral arguments in May -- including Trump financial records cases

In an unprecedented step, the United States Supreme Court will for the first time hear oral arguments by teleconference in May, seeking to resolve a number of urgent cases that include President Trump's appeal of subpoenas seeking his financial records, amid the ongoing pandemic.

The announcement confirms that justices will hand down several major decisions on politically-charged issues in time for the November presidential election.

They will rule on whether the president must surrender his records to congressional and state investigators; whether states can require delegates to the Electoral College to cast ballots based on the popular vote; and whether the Obamacare contraceptive mandate is constitutional.

The move to telephone conference is remarkable for a court steeped in tradition and famous for resisting pressure to use technology to make proceedings more accessible, ABC News' Senior Washington Reporter Devin Dwyer reports.

Sailor on coronavirus-stricken USS Theodore Roosevelt dies

A sailor from the USS Theodore Roosevelt has died from COVID-19 complications on Monday, four days after he was admitted to an intensive care unit in Guam, the Navy said.

The sailor, whose name has not been released, tested positive for COVID-19 on March 30. The sailor was taken off the ship and put at an isolation house at the naval base in Guam where he received medical checks twice a day, according to the Navy.

The USS Theodore has remained in the news since last week's resignation of Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly, who had dismissed the aircraft carrier's captain Brett Crozier -- calling him "stupid" or "naive" -- after the leak of a memo in which he urged Navy officials to promptly evacuate the ship amid the coronavirus outbreak.

There have been at least 585 confirmed infections among the crew.

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