White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow, for example, said last week that the administration had "contained this, I won't say airtight but pretty close to airtight" — a sharp break from a top CDC official who said earlier that same day that a U.S. coronavirus outbreak was "not a question of if but rather a question of when."

That trend continued Monday with the president's tweet and cable news appearances by Surgeon General Jerome Adams and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The two men, who appeared on TV a half hour apart, offered distinct evaluations of the coronavirus' danger to Americans.

"I just want to start off by saying my heart goes out to the families of the individuals who died of coronavirus this weekend. We're certainly seeing more spread in communities," Adams told "Fox & Friends" in an interview.

"But it's important for folks to know that right now their risk as American citizens remains low," he continued, later adding: "I think it's important for Americans to understand we've been here before."

Fauci, however, characterized the "beginning of community spread" in the U.S. as "really quite concerning," remarking during an appearance on CNN's "New Day" that "it's going to make our job much more challenging."

"I'm concerned that you're going to see a lot more cases. I mean, certainly when you have a number of cases that you've identified and they've been in the community for a while, you're going to wind up seeing a lot more cases than you would have predicted," he said. "So my concern is, as the next week or two or three go by, we're going to see a lot more community-related cases. And that's of great concern."

Those words of warning from Fauci, a widely respected career public health official who has led NIAID since 1984, diverged markedly from statements Monday by the administration's top elected officials, senior White House staff and political appointees like Adams — who cheered the "all-star team" managing the U.S. response to the outbreak.

"People across the world want our team to be advising them, so we've got the best people working on this," Adams said, going on to boldly predict that "more people are going to die by far from the flu than from coronavirus" worldwide.

Vice President Mike Pence, who Trump tasked last week with overseeing the White House's coronavirus task force, applauded the president's "unprecedented action to protect the health of Americans" during a speech at the annual AIPAC policy conference.

"While the risk to the American people remains low, as the president said last week, you can be assured we are ready for anything," he said.

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White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham also insisted on Fox News that "the risk to Americans is still very low" due to Trump's "unprecedented, aggressive and early steps" to counter the coronavirus, and described the administration as "very, very prepared."

Aside from his criticism of Democrats lawmakers, Trump also tweeted Monday morning that he would be "meeting with the major pharmaceutical companies today at the White House about progress on a vaccine and cure" to the coronavirus. "Progress being made!" he wrote.

Despite the president's claims that a coronavirus vaccine could be forthcoming, health officials have consistently said that such a medicine is likely many months away from completion. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office later Monday that he would soon learn whether the drug company executives could hasten the production of a potential cure.

"That's what we're going to find out. We'll know that. What we've asked them to accelerate whatever they're doing in terms of a vaccine. Absolutely," he said.

Caitlin Oprysko contributed to this report.