Trump Overruled Health Officials Who Wanted to Warn the Elderly Not to Fly
The White House ordered the removal of language from a federal health coronavirus plan that recommended warning elderly and physically vulnerable Americans not to fly on commercial airlines.
The reason for the change is unknown, according to the AP’s source who had direct knowledge of the original plan submitted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The White House denied the report. The press secretary for Vice President Mike Pence, Katie Miller, took to Twitter on Saturday and wrote, “Nope, not true. AP reporting off one unnamed individual.” Miller also tweeted that the “story is complete fiction. It was never a recommendation to the Task Force.”
One of the administration’s top health officials, Dr. Anthony Fauci, also denied the report on Fox News Sunday.
But as Trump continues to downplay the extent of the virus in the U.S., Fauci told host Chris Wallace, “We are having, obviously, an acceleration in cases now. If you look at it, every day we have more and more.”
— PoliticsVideo23 (@politicsvideo23) March 8, 2020
According to a new report in the New York Times, the White House has been in upheaval since the virus became a concern, and debates over how the “government’s actions are perceived by the public” and “what would the president think?” are omnipresent.
Trump, of course, lashed out at the Times’ reporting on Twitter, writing, “We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus. We moved VERY early to close borders to certain areas, which was a Godsend. V.P. is doing a great job. The Fake News Media is doing everything possible to make us look bad. Sad!”
What’s sad is that most of what the president is telling the public and tweeting about regarding the coronavirus crisis is not true, and his lies put us all in danger.
