NBC’s Late Night host Seth Meyers compared President Donald Trump to a drug dealer for his frequent promotion of Hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug used as a possible treatment for the Chinese coronavirus.
“It’s clear that because he ignored repeated warnings about this horrific situation, Trump is now hoping there’s a miracle cure that will get him off the hook,” said Meyers, who then served up a video clip of President Trump touting hydroxychloroquine during a recent White House coronavirus task force press briefing.
“My god, is anyone else creeped out by his tone of voice?” added Meyers. “I feel like he just pulled up in a window-less white van across from a high school. ‘Hey kid, I’ve got some hydroxychloroquine that’ll make you feel sky high!’” the NBC host said as a graphic with a windowless van appeared behind a photo of the president.
As recent as Sunday, President Donald Trump has defended pushing for doctors to prescribe hydroxychloroquine to coronavirus patients, acknowledging that experts have seen just anecdotal evidence of it working.
“I’m trying to save lives,” the president stated. “If it doesn’t work, it’s nothing lost by doing it.”
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose state leads the nation with 149,316 confirmed coronavirus cases and 6,268 deaths, said Monday that hydroxychloroquine has been “anecdotally” positive for patients with the coronavirus.
“There are a lot of people who are relying on this, who were relying on it. People with lupus, etc. The tests in the hospital, they won’t say that they are… they’re too short a period of time to get a scientific report. You know, hospital administrators, doctors, want to give… have a significant data set before they give a formal opinion,” Cuomo told reporters. “Anecdotally, you’ll get suggestions that it has been effective, but we don’t have any official data yet from a hospital, or a quote unquote study, which will take weeks if not months before you get an official study.”
One Democrat state representative from Detroit, Michigan, has even credited President Donald Trump for saving her life from coronavirus by touting hydroxychloroquine.
“I really want to say that you have to give this an opportunity,” State Rep. Karen Whitsett told the Fox News Channel on Monday. “For me, it saved my life. I only can go by what it is that I have gone through and what my story is, and I can’t speak for anyone else. So that’s not what I’m trying to do here. I’m only speaking for myself.”