Jake Tapper on Trump Replacing Top HHS Official: Keeps Going After ‘Those Presenting the Facts’ About Coronavirus

CNN’s Jake Tapper closed Sunday’s State of the Union calling out President Donald Trump reportedly pushing out a top official at HHS he publicly criticized weeks ago.

Christi Grimm, the principal deputy IG at HHS, recently came out with a report with concerning information about how underprepared hospitals were. You may remember that the president went on a tear against Grimm during a press conference a few weeks ago.

Tapper this morning noted that “though President Trump unfairly portrayed her as partisan, Grimm is a career civil servant who has never served in a political role and who served under Clinton, Bush, and Obama before serving under Trump.”

“Her report used the very same methodology that was used for two prior reports on preparedness for ebola. Inspectors General should take on hard topics and ask difficult questions and release relevant work, performing their function without bias and without fear or favor,” he continued. “What must those in the offices of inspectors general across the government be thinking right now as they look at what happened to Christi Grimm and the facts she presented?

Tapper concluded that this is just the latest example of how Trump has “too often opted to ignore or attack those presenting the facts about the virus instead of taking every necessary step to protect the United States from the virus itself.”

Tapper also previewed tonight’s CNN documentary The President and the Pandemic. You can watch the clip above, via CNN.