Politics

Dr. Birx says she was ‘paralyzed’ at Trump’s 2020 disinfectant question

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In an exclusive interview with ABC News, Dr. Deborah Birx, the coronavirus response coordinator under former President Donald Trump’s COVID task force said that she was “paralyzed” when Trump asked about injecting disinfectant into people to treat the illness during a White House press conference in April 2020.

She further revealed how she thinks specific data that was meant to keep New York City playgrounds open pushed Trump to make that suggestion.

Birx, who was interviewed by Dr. Jennifer Ashton, ABC News’ chief medical correspondent, ahead of the Tuesday release of her new book, added that she had a pact with other doctors on the team – including Fauci – that if just one of them was terminated, they would all resign in solidarity.

From the very beginning, she wrote in her book, “Silent Invasion: The Untold Story of the Trump Administration, COVID-19, and Preventing the Next Pandemic Before It’s Too Late,” that she was unequipped to handle the toxic political atmosphere she found herself in while working under the Trump White House.

Despite being the only member of Trump’s team to have on-the-ground experience in dealing with the deadly pandemic, she was apparently sidelined at every turn. Still, many Americans have begun associating Birx with her failure to more harshly correct the president during the infamous April 23, 2020 press briefing.

“So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous – whether it’s ultraviolet or just a very powerful light – and I think you said that hasn’t been checked because of the texting,” Trump commented.

He later went on to add, “I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? As you see, it gets in the lungs, it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that.”

Birx told Ashton in the interview, “I wanted to be able to reassure the parents that the natural disinfection activity of the sun, with its ability to produce those free radicals that eat these viruses and bacteria and fungi, their membranes, that that would work, and that they could get their children outside to play on the playground.” 

ARTICLE: ELIZABETH HERTZBERG

MANAGING EDITOR: CARSON CHOATE

PHOTO CREDITS: CNN

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