Democratic Representative Ted Lieu of California criticized former White House Coronavirus Task Force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx on Saturday for allowing former President Donald Trump’s COVID-19 response, which allegedly caused “hundreds thousands of unnecessary deaths “.
Birx recently discussed the federal response to the coronavirus under the Trump administration with CNN’s chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, in a new documentary. “I see things this way. The first time we have an excuse,” she said. “There were about a hundred thousand deaths caused by the initial increase. All the others, in my mind, could have been mitigated or reduced substantially.”
In response, Lieu strongly criticized Birx for unfairly praising Trump and complicit in the deaths for not challenging the former president’s “unscientific rhetoric”.
“The malicious incompetence that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths starts at the top, with the former president and his facilitators,” tweeted the congressman. “And who was one of your facilitators? Dr. Birx, who was afraid to challenge his unscientific rhetoric and wrongly praised him.”
The malicious incompetence that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths starts at the top, with the former president and his facilitators.
And who was one of your facilitators? Dr. Birx, who was afraid to challenge his unscientific rhetoric and praised him unfairly. https://t.co/PhiSTUtAzv
– Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) March 27, 2021
Birx, who has worked in the federal government since 1980, was appointed the administrator of AIDS assistance by the government of former President Barack Obama, before joining the Trump administration’s COVID-19 response team last March.
In December, Birx announced that he would retire after assisting in the transition from Joe Biden’s elected government to the White House. A month later, Birx told CBS ‘ Face the Nation that she was “censored” by the White House and barred from making national television appearances.
She admitted that there was a time before the November election when she felt that her work on COVID-19 “was getting nowhere”, but insisted that she never concealed information from the public on purpose.
“When it became a point where I was getting nowhere and it was like just before the election, I wrote a very detailed communication plan of what needed to happen the day after the election and how it needed to be carried out,” said Birx . “And there was a lot of promise that it would happen.”
Birx also said that her colleagues often questioned her political loyalty when she worked for Trump and she “always” considered resigning.
“Colleagues of mine that I had known for decades … decades in that single experience, because I was in the White House, decided that I had become that political person, even though they had known me forever. I think I can do that it would be useful to respond to this pandemic and it is something that I asked myself every night, “she said.
Newsweek contacted Trump representatives for comment.
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