CDC Whistleblowers Bash Trump Administration: ‘We Were Not Able’ To Do Our Jobs Because of Covid Response ‘Meddling’
NBC’s Chuck Todd spoke to former members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who offered their personal insights on the Trump administration’s interference with their coronavirus response endeavors.
Kyle McGowan and Amanda Campbell were the focal points of a recent New York Times article on how the White House repeatedly tried to micromanage the CDC while it was trying to inform the public about how to protect against Covid. The two former CDC staffers recalled how CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield frequently had to deal with input from prominent White House officials whenever pandemic science clashed with the administration’s messaging.
McGowan and Campbell gave a joint interview for Meet The Press, where Todd began by asking the former about how the HHS and the CDC got “sidelined” months ago after warning of the pandemic’s seriousness. McGowan remarked that the director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization, Nancy Messonnier, was entirely correct with her predictions, but he and Campbell watched as more and more the administration wanting a larger say in the messaging that was coming out of the CDC.”
“And when that messaging, you know, clashed with the science, the messaging won.” McGowan said.
Campbell offered similar comments as she recalled how members of the administration commented on guidance the CDC was trying to send out, which “often led to delays.” Since Todd noted that President Donald Trump publicly disagreed with the CDC’s guidelines for schools, Campbell said the incident “led to us having to go back and make changes and do additional guidance in order to provide the right information and more information really to the American people.”
When Todd asked the two of them when they reached their “breaking point,” McGowan denied that there was a moment in particular, but because of “the meddling that was coming out of the administration, we were, you know, not able to do the job that we were sent there for.”
Watch above, via NBC.
