Dr. Anthony Fauci: Trump's desire to reopen the country by Easter is an 'aspirational projection'

Fauci claimed that the President is "listening" to the medical experts on his White House coronavirus taskforce about whether to make the decision to lift the government's health restrictions imposed to fight the virus.

"He's listening to us when we say we really got to reevaluate it, in real time, and any decision we make has to be based on the data," Fauci said Thursday of the President on CNN's Global Town Hall, "Coronavirus: Facts and Fears."

With the number of cases increasing rapidly, "that's not time to pull back," said Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

"That's when you got to hunker down, nail down, mitigate, mitigate, mitigate -- get the people taking care of," Fauci said. "That's what you got to concentrate on. You have to go with the data."

Trump said this week that he wants the nation "opened up and just raring to go by Easter," as the US economy is on a downward spiral and the jobless claims hit a historic high this week.