Former White House coronavirus response task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said on MSNBC’s “Katy Tur Reports” that during the early days of the COVID pandemic, with the approval of then-Vice President Mike Pence, she went to local media all across America to say the exact opposite of the information citizens were getting from then-President Donald Trump.
Tur said, “What about when it became clear to you that he was dangerous, that he was saying to people inject bleach into your arms to clear out the virus. He said he was joking, but that’s not the way the American public takes him. The CDC had poison hotlines.”
She continued, “Why didn’t you get out in front of a podium and tell the American public I am a White House health official, I am in charge of the response of the pandemic, and you need to listen to doctors, I’m sorry, not the president of the United States.”
Birx said, “I did that on local media. I was barred from doing that on national media.”
She added, “You have to do what you can to change the needle and the response. I think if you talk to governors, they’ll tell you I had that impact. I know that’s difficult to see from the national media perspective. But I think if you went in and looked at those local media hits, you would see that I was saying the opposite of what the president was saying. And that was so important to me to be clear about that that I went to the vice president and said those very words in August. I said I am going out and saying exactly the opposite of what the president is saying. He said do what you need to do, and that’s what I did.”
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