CNN

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, joined CNN's town hall Thursday to discuss the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Fauci said he believes that there should be a federally mandated stay-at-home order, something President Donald Trump has been loathe to do.

"I don't understand why that's not happening. As you said, the tension between federally mandated versus states rights to do what they want is something I don't want to get into. But if you look at what is going on in this country, I do not understand why we are not doing that. We really should be," Fauci said.

Trump said Wednesday that he does not plan to issue such an order because different states have different levels of coronavirus cases.

“States are different and I understand that the governor of Florida, great Gov. Ron DeSantis issued one today and that’s good, that’s great. But there are some states that are different. There are some states that don't have much of a problem,” Trump said Wednesday afternoon.

The President said there should be some sort of flexibility among the states depending on how bad individual states situations might be.

“You have to look -- you have to give a little flexibility. If you have a state in the Midwest, or if Alaska for example doesn't have a problem, it's awfully tough to say close it down. We have to have a little bit of flexibility,” Trump said.

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