Trump news: President smears vaccine whistleblower as coronavirus shutdown sees US unemployment claims soar to 36m
President claims testing is 'overrated' and demands allies investigate Obama as global death toll tops 300,000
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Donald Trump lashed out at Dr Rick Bright, who blew the whistle on the president’s efforts to promote an unproven anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a remedy for coronavirus, ahead of his appearance before Congress on Thursday as the number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits because of the shutdown climbed to 36m.
Those developments followed the president calling on the states to reopen their schools as soon as possible as part of lockdown-ending measures, contradicting the advice of top expert Dr Anthony Fauci on the highly dubious basis that coronavirus has “very little impact on young people”.
His remarks following more than 1.4m cases of Covid-19 and a death toll of more than 84,500 and as New York and 14 other states began investigating the possible outbreak of a coronavirus-related illness impacting children, some fatally.
The global death toll reached more than 300,000 on Thursday, with deaths in the US accounting for nearly a third of that towering figure.
After his whistle-blower complaint revealed the administration's attempts to dismiss warnings and award lucrative pharmaceutical contracts to White House connections, Dr Bright's testimony warned Americans that a "window" for an effective response against the pandemic is beginning to close as he urged Congress and the administration to lead with science and adapt a national testing strategy as nearly every state begins to ease quarantine efforts.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar has dismissed allegations in the complaint, and the president claims he doesn't know Dr Bright, who was charged with the relatively important task of vaccine development, though the president called him a "disgruntled employee".
The president meanwhile stopped in Allentown, Pennsylvania, for another White House-sponsored campaign stop in which he attacked his political rival Joe Biden, talked about "globalists" and claimed "it's a beautiful thing to see" health workers "running into death just like soldiers running into bullets".
He also claimed that coronavirus testing "is, frankly, overrated" while also claiming that the US has the best testing "in the world".
The president told a workers at a medical supply distribution centre: "When you test, you have a case. When you test you find something is wrong with people. If we didn't do any testing, we would have very few cases."
He also called on his Republican ally Senator Lindsey Graham to call Barack Obama to testify in his fishing-expedition "Obamagate" conspiracy. The senator said "that would open up a can of worms".
"I think it would be a bad precedent to compel a former president to come before the Congress," he said. "For a variety of reasons, I don't think that's a good idea."
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The supplier reportedly told him: "We're in deep s***. The world is. And, we need to act."
Dr Bright said: "I pushed that forward to the highest levels I could in HHS and got no response. From that moment I knew we were going to have a crisis."
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Oklahoma Republican Congressman Markwayne Mullin — who earlier today called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a "socialist" for a "partisan wishlist" relief bill for Americans during the pandemic — appeared to criticise whistle-blower Dr Rick Bright for using sick leave and vacation time following his removal from his position from a federal health agency.
He was moved to a position with the National Institutes of Health, and he testified that he spoke with the agency last night about his duties.
Congressman Mullin accused him of "deceiving the American government" by using paid leave while testifying. He didn't ask about any allegations made in his whistle-blower complaint.
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Earlier today, he said he had "never heard" of Dr Bright, despite leading an agency charged with vaccine development during the pandemic.
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Why wasn't the US able to scale up its testing like other countries? Rick Bright points to delays and reliance on global supply chain
Coronavirus whistle-blower Rick Bright, asked by Delaware Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester why the nation has struggled to scale up its testing, said that the US waited too long to do so.
"Part of the struggle is waiting too late," he said.
But because the supply chain is largely "offshore" with the US competing within a "global need for that supply chain, that significantly impairs out ability to ramp up" testing production, he said.
Dr Bright has urged the Department of Health and Human Services to develop a national testing strategy — rather than leave it up to the states — as well as a plan for distributing a vaccine, when it's available.
"That has to be in a coordinated way ... it's not something we do once and we're done," he said. Testing is "not just that we need one test for every person in America" but also the right types of tests, people who know how to administer them, and infrastructure for widespread contact tracing.
'Time is running out because the virus is spreading everywhere'
Dr Rick Bright's testimony outlines shortcomings in Trump administration's response as president's allies try to undermine his reports and Trump himself says he's never heard of the man charged with vaccine development amid the public health crisis.
Danielle Zoellner reports:
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