John Berman Repeatedly Grills Alex Azar: You Honestly Don’t Know How Many People Have Been Tested?

Health Secretary Alex Azar is in about a difficult position as anyone in the Trump administration, and yet he gamely appeared on CNN’s New Day Tuesday morning and faced tough but fair questioning from co-anchor John Berman.

At issue, of course, is the federal government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak (which CNN is now officially calling a pandemic) and the distance between President Donald Trump’s curious rhetoric and that which is being conveyed by Vice President Mike Pence and others that are more directly involved.

Berman opened by admitting that his “elbow is bruised from all the elbow bumping” he’s been doing, before plainly asking his guest “how many Americans have been tested at this point?”

Azar answered honestly “We don’t know exactly how many because of hundreds of thousands of our tests have gone out to private labs and hospitals that currently do not report into CDC,” before explaining that there are “2.1 million tests available, 1.1 million have shipped. We actually have a surplus at the moment that are awaiting orders to be shipped.”

Berman replied “But you don’t know, you honestly don’t know? You don’t know how many people have been tested?”

“We’re trying to set up a reporting system where they would in effect do that,” Secretary Azar replied.

And so it went until Berman cited an Atlantic article that reported a very low number of roughly 4,300 individuals had been tested as of last Friday, which he then asked Azar to confirm. He did not.

Watch above via CNN.