Category: Authoritarian

Trump Berates CBS News’ Weijia Jiang for Calling Whistleblower Dr. Rick Bright Gifted

President Donald Trump insisted he didn’t know anything about whistleblowing vaccine expert Dr. Rick Bright, but then berated CBS News White House correspondent Weijia Jiang for asking about Bright’s “gifts” in his field of expertise.

On Wednesday, Dr. Bright released a blockbuster statement in which he said he’d been demoted from his position leading the agency tasked with vaccine development because he had pushed back against funding unproven coronavirus treatments that Trump has relentlessly promoted — and suggested that political connections and cronyism were behind Trump’s promotion of them.

Despite the implications of Bright’s accusations, it wasn’t until nearly an hour into the briefing that a reporter asked about it.

“Mr. President, I wanted to ask you about Rick Bright,” ABC News’ Jonathan Karl said. “He’s the head of the federal agency in charge of getting a vaccine out to — to Americans once it’s ready. He says he has been pushed out of his job because he raised questions about hydroxychloroquine and some of your directives on that. Was he pushed out of that job?”

“I’ve never heard of him. You just mentioned the name. I never heard of him,” Trump claimed, then asked “When did this happen?”

“This happened today,” Karl said, to which Trump said “Well, I’ve never heard of him. If the guy says he was pushed out of a job, maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. I — you’d have to hear the other side. I don’t know who he is.”

Karl tried to ask a follow-up, but Trump brushed him off to call on another reporter.

Despite the fact that Trump simultaneously claimed not to know the head of the agency tasked with finding a vaccine during a global pandemic and casually acknowledged the man may well have been pushed out of his job, only one other reporter asked about Dr. Bright for the remainder of the briefing.

“Mr. President, yes, I just had a follow — a question for Dr. Fauci, if you don’t mind,” Weijia Jiang said, adding “And I’m happy to ask you one after.”

She never got the chance to question Trump, but Jiang asked Dr. Fauci “So this concern or an accusation he’s raised that he was removed from his job because he protested widespread use of hydroxychloroquine, are you familiar with the situation? And do you feel like public health experts feel they are able to speak publicly or to speak out in opposition to the things?”

Fauci shook his head and said “Here I am,” indicating that he is an example of an expert speaking publicly. Dr. Fauci has urged caution about the drugs Trump has promoted, but has not spoken in opposition the way Dr. Bright did.

“So you don’t feel like there’s any concern among people at the NIH right now or in the public health community?” Jiang asked.

“At the NIH, absolutely not,” Fauci replied.

“Dr. Fauci, knowing Dr. Bright and knowing what his gifts are as one of the country’s leading experts on vaccines, are those gifts best suited at NIH rather than BARDA? What’s he going to be doing with you?” Jiang asked, and added “are his gifts best suited to work with you rather than BARDA?”

“I don’t really think I can comment on somebody’s relative gifts,” Fauci said, then described Dr. Bright’s new duties.

“I mean, he’s — he’s going to be at the NIH, and he’s going to be responsible, from what I hear — again, this is what I’ve heard — that he’s going to be responsible for the development of diagnostics, which is very, very important,” Fauci said.

As Fauci wrapped up his answer, Jiang began to ask “Are you concerned at all that he –”

But Trump stepped up to the podium and interrupted by saying “And why did you say that he has great gifts or gifts? What, do you know him?”

“Well, that’s his expertise. I mean, I’m just looking at his résumé,” Jiang said. Dr. Bright is an award-winning vaccine expert.

Trump  interrupted “No, no, but have you reviewed him? Have you — have you studied him? Have you reported on him? You said, ‘his gifts.’ His gifts. I mean…”

“He’s worked his entire career developing vaccines, including the –” Jiang said, as Trump interrupted again.

“Well, that doesn’t mean you have gifts. I know a lot of people, they play baseball, but they can’t hit 150 in the Major Leagues,” Trump said.

“Well, he helped develop the flu vaccine last year,” Jiang said.

“No, no, but you talk about his great gifts,” Trump said, then rolled on to the next reporter.

Neither Jiang nor Karl had the chance to ask Trump about the substance of Dr. Bright’s accusations, and not a single other reporter bothered to try.

[Mediaite]

HHS ousts vaccine expert who pushed back on COVID-19 treatment

The former head of the office involved in developing a vaccine for COVID-19 said he was removed after he pushed to vet and to limit drug treatments often touted by President Trump. “Specifically, and contrary to misguided directives, I limited the broad use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, promoted by the Administration as a panacea, but which clearly lack scientific merit,” Dr. Rick Bright said in a statement released by his lawyers Wednesday.

In tweets and public remarks, Mr. Trump has referred to hydroxychloroquine as a potential “game-changer” in treating COVID-19. The president has recommended the use of the antimalarial drug as a potential treatment for the coronavirus, despite limited evidence that the drug would be effective.

Bright was the director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and HHS deputy assistant secretary for preparedness and response by the administration.

He said that he was “involuntarily transferred to a more limited and less impactful position at the National Institutes of Health,” a transfer that he believes came in response to his “insistence that the government invest the billions of dollars allocated by Congress to address the COVID-19 pandemic into safe and scientifically vetted solutions, and not in drugs, vaccines and other technologies that lack scientific merit.”

“I am speaking out because to combat this deadly virus, science — not politics or cronyism — has to lead the way,” he said in his statement. Bright is a career official and not a political appointee. He has requested that the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services investigate his dismissal.

Bright said that he’s “prepared to look at all options and to think ‘outside the box’ for effective treatments,” but “I rightly resisted efforts to provide an unproven drug on demand to the American public.”

He demanded that the drugs only be used under a doctor’s supervision and only to “hospitalized patients with confirmed COVID-19” because of the “potentially serious risks associated with them, including increased mortality observed in some recent studies in patients with COVID-19.”

“Rushing blindly towards unproven drugs can be disastrous and result in countless more deaths. Science, in service to the health and safety of the American people, must always trump politics,” Bright said.

[CBS News]

Trump Says the Press Is ‘Fomenting Tremendous Anger’ at Briefing: I Get Very ‘Hostile’ Questions

President Donald Trump took a moment during Monday’s coronavirus press briefing to go off on the media again and the “hostile” questions he gets.

After a question from OANN about bipartisanship and his relationship with Democrats, the president said there has been bipartisanship in addressing the economic concerns of the coronavirus pandemic.

He swiped at Speaker Nancy Pelosi a bit and said she’s been “very nasty” and “wasted a lot of time on the impeachment hoax.”

The president also took some shots at the press and complained about getting “hostile” questions:

“The people are really coming together. I think you’re going to find that our country is much more unified. I do think that the press, the media, foments a lot of this, a lot of anger. I really believe it, foments tremendous anger. For instance, I’ll be asked a tremendously hostile question from somebody and then I’ll answer in a hostile way which is appropriate. Otherwise you look foolish. Otherwise it looks like just walk off the stage and bow your head. I can’t do that. You know, I just can’t do that. But a lot of these questions are asked from certain networks are so hostile and there’s no reason for it. There’s no reason for it.”

[Mediaite]

‘You don’t have the brains you were born with’: Defensive Trump goes off on CNN reporter

President Donald Trump unleashed on CNN as a reporter was asking why he comes out to talk about being praised by governors when people are dying.

“You’re CNN. You’re fake news!” Trump shouted. “You don’t have the brains you were born with.”

He went on to attack the reporter again later in the press conference when he asked additional questions about whether Trump was duped by the Chinese. Trump said that he wasn’t, it was former President Barack Obama that was duped by China.

He then went off on how the Obama administration left him high and dry on tests for the coronavirus. COVID-19 is named “19” because it was discovered in 2019. Obama was out of office on Jan. 20, 2017.

[Raw Story]

Trump: Some governors have gone too far on coronavirus restrictions

President Trump on Sunday said he believes some governors have “gone too far” in imposing restrictions meant to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

Trump told reporters at a White House briefing that he did not have an issue with the protesters who have flouted social distancing guidelines to voice displeasure with the restrictions, which have shuttered businesses and spiked unemployment.

“Some have gone too far. Some governors have gone too far. Some of the things that happened are maybe not so appropriate,” Trump said. “And I think in the end it’s not going to matter because we’re starting to open up our states, and I think they’re going to open up very well.”

“As far as protesters, you know, I see protesters for all sorts of things,” he added. “And I’m with everybody. I’m with everybody.”

The president initially declined to specify any particular governor he thought had gone too far before knocking Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) and Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D), suggesting the latter deserved to be protested for signing new gun laws.

“If you take Michigan, there were things in Michigan that I don’t think they were necessary or appropriate. Everyone knows that,” the president said. “I think the governor of Michigan — we’re getting along very well — but I think the governor of Michigan probably knows that.”

Whitmer has seen her name floated as a possible vice presidential pick, which may have made her a bigger target for Trump.

Trump has in recent days sympathized with protesters who turned out by the hundreds in states across the country, flouting the same social distancing guidelines the White House has put in place to stamp out the virus that urge Americans to avoid gatherings of 10 or more people.

The president on Friday threw his support behind protesters in Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia who held demonstrations to oppose stay-at-home orders and other restrictions meant to curb the spread of the virus, calling to “LIBERATE” those states. All three are run by Democratic governors.

Small protests have formed in recent days in Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, Minnesota, Texas and Florida, with others planned for the coming week. Some demonstrators have waved Trump flags or worn apparel bearing the president’s name.

Trump said the protesters he’s seen in press coverage are showing a “love of our country.”

State leaders have expressed concern that Trump’s call for liberation could foment civil unrest and encourage the demonstrations. Public health experts have warned that the large gatherings could further spread the virus, extending the need for social distancing. 

The coronavirus has infected more than 755,000 people in the U.S. as of Sunday night, according to Johns Hopkins University data, and killed more than 40,000.

The White House’s phased approach to reopening the U.S. economy calls for governors to make the final determination on when they can lift social distancing guidelines. But Trump’s continued acceptance of the protests threatens to incite further animosity toward state leaders. 

Vice President Pence said during Sunday’s briefing that Americans should “heed your state and local authorities.”

The president has been adamant about the need to reopen the economy, which has been a central tenet of his reelection campaign. But he insisted on Sunday that the lifting of restrictions would prioritize safety.

“There are a lot of great things happening, and we’re going to start to open our country,” he said. “It’s like a beautiful puzzle.”

[The Hill]

Trump says exclusion of Romney from task force shows he’s still holding a grudge

President Trump on Sunday said he intentionally left Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) off his congressional task force on reopening the U.S. economy amid the coronavirus, acknowledging it shows he still holds a grudge over the senator’s impeachment vote.

The president included every Republican senator on the task force except Romney, who voted to convict Trump for abuse of power. Asked if his exclusion shows he’s still holding a grudge, Trump said, “Yeah, it does.”

“I’m not a fan of Mitt Romney,” Trump said, adding, “I don’t really want his advice.”

The White House on Thursday released the members of its “Opening Up America Again Congressional Group.” The list included nearly 70 senators, including all 52 of Romney’s GOP colleagues in the chamber.

A spokeswoman for Romney and a source familiar confirmed that the GOP senator was not asked to take part in the task force. Romney is a former governor, private sector executive and presidential candidate.

Romney was the only GOP senator to vote for one of the articles during the Senate impeachment trial earlier this year. Trump has repeatedly referenced the vote in chiding Romney, at one point swiping at the Mormon senator’s use of religion to explain his reasoning for the vote.

There has been animosity between the two dating back years. After courting his support in 2012, Romney was fiercely critical of Trump during the 2016 campaign.

The two appeared to reconcile, with Trump considering Romney for a Cabinet post and endorsing his Senate bid in 2018. But the relationship appears to have deteriorated beyond repair with the impeachment vote.

[The Hill]

Trump lashes out at CBS reporter asking tough questions

President Donald Trump appeared to play it cool at first when he was pressed by CBS News reporter Weijia Jiang on Sunday, asking about the slow response to the coronavirus crisis.

“If you look at what I did banning china from coming in,” Trump began.

“Not American nationals,” she cut in, to mention the 40,000 people who were allowed back into the U.S. from China.

“Nice and easy. Nice and easy. Relax. We cut it off. Everybody was amazed that I did it. We had 21 people in a room. Everybody was against it but me. Dr. Fauci said had I not done that, perhaps tens of thousands and maybe much more than that people would have died. I was very early, very, very early. And we just saw, you saw Bret Baier making a statement. They had a debate well into February and not even mention — it wasn’t mentioned, the Democrats, we were very early. I’m the president, and you know what I just did?”

He then asked her how many people had died by the time Trump had intervened. In fact, no one knows how many people with COVID-19 died or were even infected because there was no testing.

“So do you acknowledge –” she began again before he snapped at her again.

“Keep your voice down!” Trump shouted.

[Raw Story]

Media

Trump Blows Up at CNN Reporter Grilling Him for Self-Praise After More Than 40,000 Coronavirus Deaths: ‘You People are So Pathetic!’

President Donald Trump repeatedly stormed at CNN reporter Jeremy Diamond for questioning his self-praise while the coronavirus continues to ravage the country.

During his latest press conference at the White House, Trump read praise of himself from the Wall Street Journal and played two clips of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo offering positive comments about the federal response. These clips were cherry-picked, however, for Trump declined to roll any footage of Cuomo calling for greater federal action on the crisis, nor the governor’s requests for more health resources.

When Diamond got to ask his question, he started off by noting that the U.S. has now exceeded 40,000 deaths from the virus. To that point, Diamond asked Trump “can you explain why you come out here and you are reading clips and showing clips of praise for you and your administration? Is this really the time for self-congratulations?”

Trump claimed to have been directing praise to the health workers on the front lines of treating the pandemic, but Diamond noted that “the clip you played and what your read earlier was praising you.”

As Diamond once again brought up the 40,000 dead Americans, Trump switched gears to call the reporter “fake news” and said “they were excoriated by people like you who don’t know any better because you don’t have the brains with you were born with.”

“It’s not about me. Nothing is about me,” Trump grumbled.

“You are never going to treat me fairly, many of you, and I understand that. I don’t know, I got here with the worst more unfair press treatment in the history of the United States for president. They did say Abraham Lincoln had very bad treatment too.”

As Trump continued to wax on about he’s “remaking the playbook,” there was a moment when he said there were “almost 40,000” deaths, which prompted Diamond to note that it’s over 40,000.

“Oh, more than. Okay. Good. Correct me,” Trump said in sarcastic bitterness. After touting that the body count could’ve been worse, he bashed Diamond again by saying “you just don’t have the sense to understand what’s going on.”

Later in the press conference, Diamond drew Trump’s ire again when he brought up the president’s past praise for China’s coronavirus response and asked “were you duped by President Xi?” Trump deflected by responding “you and the Obama Administration” were the duped ones, and then he digressed into his trade dealings with China.

After Trump steamrolled over Diamond’s follow-up questions and claimed “nobody was tougher before the deal ever on China than Trump,” he said “you people are so pathetic at CNN” and then shifted into attacking House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

As Trump moved on despite Diamond’s efforts, he ended it with “your ratings are so bad because you are pathetic. Your ratings are terrible. You have got to get back to real news.”

[Mediaite]

Trump says Fox, Chris Wallace ‘on a bad path’ after Pelosi appearance on network

President Trump criticized Fox News and host Chris Wallace on Sunday, saying they are “on a bad path” after Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) appeared on “Fox News Sunday” for the first time since 2017.

The president in a tweet also called the Speaker “an inherently ‘dumb’ person.”

“She wasted all of her time on the Impeachment Hoax,” he tweeted, referring to Pelosi.

“She will be overthrown, either by inside or out, just like her last time as ‘Speaker,’” he added. “Wallace & @FoxNews are on a bad path, watch!” 

Fox announced last week that Pelosi would appear on its Sunday morning political talk show to “discuss the current state of the U.S. amid the coronavirus pandemic, negotiations to revive the small business loan program and much more.”

During her “Fox News Sunday” appearance, the Speaker said Trump “gets an F” on coronavirus testing. She also said National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci’s testing recommendation “hasn’t been done.”

Trump has defended his administration’s testing efforts, saying during a briefing on Saturday that U.S. capacity is “fully sufficient” to begin reopening the economy. He tweeted Sunday that he was “right on testing” just like he was “right on Ventilators.”

Pelosi also was interviewed on ABC’s “This Week,” where she said, “Frankly, I don’t pay that much attention to the president’s tweets against me.” 

[The Hill]

Donald Trump Threatens to Close Congress Unilaterally

At his coronavirus press conference on Wednesday, President Donald Trump issued a stunning threat-slash-promise-slash-constitutional fantasy. Complaining that Democrats were blocking his judicial appointees, the president said that the Senate should either end its current pro forma session and come back to Washington amidst a pandemic to approve his appointees or officially adjourn so that he can make recess appointments. “The Senate has left Washington until at least May 4,” Trump said. “The Constitution provides a mechanism for the president to fill positions in such circumstances, the recess appointment it’s called. The Senate’s practice of gaveling into so-called pro forma sessions where no one is even there has prevented me from using the constitutional authority that we’re given under the recess provisions. The Senate should either fulfill its duty and vote on my nominees or it should formally adjourn so that I can make recess appointments.”

“If the House will not agree to that adjournment,” he continued, “I will exercise my constitutional authority to adjourn both chambers of Congress. The current practice of leaving of town while conducting phony pro forma sessions is a dereliction of duty that the American people cannot afford during this crisis. It is a scam what they do.”

Trump is likely referencing Article 2, Section 3 of the Constitution, which provides that the president can “on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper.” Does he have the power to actually do this, though? According to this 1964 article from the New York Times the Senate Parliamentarian issued an opinion in that year, regarding presidential authority to adjourn Congress: “The answer is yes—but only under, certain unusual circumstances. These conditions are so limited that a President has never exercised the power to adjourn Congress.”

The clause as written seems to require that the president can only force the Senate to adjourn “in Case of Disagreement between them,” which suggests that it operates in cases where the House and Senate disagree about a date for adjournment. But the House and Senate have already agreed on a date: Jan 3, 2021.

Trump, it seems, needs Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and a majority of Senators to come back to Washington to adjourn the Senate, which would then trigger a disagreement with the House of Representatives, as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi would presumably then refuse to adjourn. On Wednesday, McConnell’s office said that he had spoken with Trump about the recess appointment question, but also indicated that he would not be altering Senate rules to get Trump his appointments. If McConnell were to adjourn along a party-line vote—possibly blowing up the filibuster in the process—theoretically, Trump would then adjourn the two disagreeing bodies. Recess appointments under this scheme would last only until January of 2021, but it would still be an unprecedented power grab. As historian Michael Beschloss tweeted, “Wilson, Taft and FDR were all urged to adjourn Congress and all refused.”

“They know they’ve been warned and they’ve been warned right now,” Trump said. “If they don’t approve it, then we’re going to go this route and we’ll probably be challenged in court and we’ll see who wins.”

Indeed, if Trump did manage to get Senate Republicans to go along with this plan, one wonders what the conservative-controlled Supreme Court might do. In 2014, the Supreme Court validated the legitimacy of holding pro forma sessions for the purpose of preventing recess appointments in NLRB v. Noel Canning, but that case did not involve the use of this unprecedented mechanism by a president. It would be challenged on a number of fronts.

“It is unclear that we have an extraordinary occasion in the sense that the Framers were using it,” University of Richmond School of Law Carl Tobias told me in an email. “It is not surprising that the provision has never been invoked, because no president has ever found the existence of an extraordinary occasion that warranted exercise of this power, even [though] the [United States] had the Civil War and two declared World Wars, while the House and Senate have always been able to agree on a time to adjourn.”

It’s possible that the move is also just intended as a feint to distract from Trump’s disastrous response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the spiraling economy. “Trump desperately wants to change the subject—away from the pandemic he’s so badly handled that’s killing Americans and toward this,” Georgetown Law professor Josh Geltzer told me. “It’s important to explain why he is out of step with American constitutional traditions. But it’s also important not to let him change the focus at this critical time.”

Ultimately, the real concern is that someone has advised President Trump that he has the power to adjourn Congress and he’s building an argument for it; his White House Counsel and Justice Department are doubtless crafting the fanciful legal scaffolding right now. As is often the case when the president makes broad claims about untested constitutional authority, the worry is less that he will adjourn Congress tomorrow, and more that he is recreationally floating insane notions, bolstering them with in-house analysis, and laying the groundwork for emergency powers he may someday seek in earnest. It’s happened before and there is no reason it can’t happen again.

[Slate]

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