The
CDC Director Is Straight Up Calling Trump’s COVID Adviser a Liar
“Everything he says is false,” Robert Redfield was overheard
saying about White House pandemic adviser Scott Atlas on a commercial
flight.
SEPTEMBER
28, 2020
Scott Atlas—the neuroradiologist brought onto Donald
Trump’s coronavirus task force in August despite having no background in
infectious diseases or epidemiology—is proving to be quite the headache for
public health experts trying to combat the pandemic and the slew of
misinformation surrounding it. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Director Robert Redfield was overheard airing such grievances
over the phone on Friday, NBC reported, during a call
he made in public while traveling on a commercial airline. “Everything he says
is false,” Redfield said to a colleague on the other end of the line,
acknowledging after the flight that he was referring to Atlas.
Before joining the task
force, Atlas apparently caught Trump’s attention as a regular on Fox News, which gave him a
platform early in the pandemic to spout unproven claims and inaccurate
predictions (many of them appealing to Trump’s desired return to normalcy). The
network has since scaled back booking him as infectious disease experts sound
the alarm over his problematic views. According to NBC, Redfield suggested
during the call that “Atlas is arming Trump with misleading data about a range
of issues,” including the controversial herd immunity theory that Atlas
has reportedly been pushing inside the White
House while also entertaining doubts about the efficacy of masks and
downplaying the risk that the virus poses to young people—medical advice at
odds with most public health experts, including Redfield. In response to Redfield’s
comments, Atlas said in a statement: “Everything I have said is directly from
the data and the science. It echoes what is said by many of the top medical
scientists in the world, including those at Stanford, Harvard, and Oxford.”
Testifying before
Congress earlier this month, Redfield said wearing a mask may be more effective
against the coronavirus than initial vaccines. “If every one of us did it, this
pandemic would be over in eight to 12 weeks,” he said. Contradicting Trump’s declaration
that the U.S. has “turned the corner” on the coronavirus, Redfield warned the
Senate: “We’re nowhere near the end.” Both Trump and Atlas have used White
House press briefings to publicly contest Redfield’s testimonies. Exactly one
week after the president took to the podium to dispute Redfield’s comments on vaccine
distribution and the importance of masks, Atlas undermined the CDC director’s
subsequent testimony to a Senate panel that 90 percent of Americans remain
susceptible to the coronavirus, a fact that Atlas claimed Redfield had “misstated” under oath.
Such mixed messages
aren’t the first of their kind; they’re part of an ongoing clash between the
administration and Redfield over the CDC taking COVID seriously. Agency
staffers told CNN that
trying to respond to the coronavirus while the administration continues to
downplay its threat and contradict public health messaging—all while leveling
baseless “deep state” attacks on government scientists—has left officials
demoralized, their unease coupled by what some referred to as Redfield’s
“ineffective” leadership in the face of White House pressure. “The morale is as
low as I’ve ever seen it and we have no confidence in our leadership,” a CDC
official said. “People are miserable and it’s a shame because this pandemic is
still flying away and we still need a robust public health response.” Olivia
Troye, who spent months working the coronavirus task force until resigning
from her position as Vice President Mike Pence’s homeland security
adviser in August, said that many health experts and career officials share the
frustration and dejection weighing on CDC staffers. “It is incredibly difficult
to spend your entire life’s work for a greater mission on behalf of the
American people and have the White House and the people at the top completely
disregard it,” Troye said. “And it’s not just one time, it's nonstop.”