Trump appointees ran an urgent campaign to restrict immigration at the border, change scientific reports and muzzle top officials at the CDC, according to emails, text messages and interviews gathered by a congressional panel investigating the pandemic response. Via the Washington Post:
Former CDC director Robert Redfield, former top deputy Anne Schuchat and others described how the Trump White House and its allies repeatedly “bullied” staff, tried to rewrite their publications and threatened their jobs in an attempt to align the CDC with the more optimistic view of the pandemic espoused by Donald Trump, the House select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis concluded in a report released Monday.
"More optimistic view." Gag me. What a gentle way of pointing out the countless deaths that resulted from Trump's public relations push.
Several public health officials detailed a months-long campaign against Schuchat sparked by Trump appointees’ belief that her grim assessments of the pandemic reflected poorly on the president, leading Schuchat, a 32-year CDC veteran, to openly wonder if she would be fired in the summer of 2020, her colleagues told the panel.
