‘You Chose Not To!’ CNN’s Brianna Keilar Confronts Dr. Birx on Not Speaking Out, Praising Trump’s Analytical Skills

CNN anchor Brianna Keilar conducted an intense grilling of Dr. Deborah Birx over her failure to speak out against then-President Donald Trump’s Covid misinformation, her praise of Trump’s analytical skills, and other issues.

On Wednesday morning’s edition of CNN’s New Day, Keilar interviewed Birx, who was a member of Trump’s Covid team perhaps best known for her reaction to Trump’s recommendation that people try taking disinfectants internally to treat Covid. Birx is promoting a new book.

During the nearly 12-minute interview, Keilar persistently confronted Birx over elements of her tenure in Trump’s White House, first by playing a brutal montage of Trump saying he was definitely trying to make the U.S. do less testing.

• “I’ve always said testing is somewhat overrated. When you do testing, to that extent, you’re going to find more people, you’re going to find more cases. So I said to my people, Slow the testing down, please.”
• “I don’t kid. We test. We’re going to have more cases by having more cases.”
• “It sounds bad, but actually what it is, is we’re finding people many of those people aren’t sick or very little.”
• “We test so many people that we have more cases. Everybody says we have so many cases. That’s because we test so many people. If we tested half as much, those numbers would be down.”

Birx went into a long digression about Vice President Kamala Harris’ recent positive test, then insisted that behind the scenes, her task force was doing the opposite.

She told Keilar “that was what was difficult in this White House because things are being said and we were doing the opposite.”

Keilar keyed in on the passive phrase:

BRIANNA KEILAR: Things were being said. The president, the man, the guy.

DR. BIRX: Yes… Yes…

BRIANNA KEILAR: He was saying them. So you talk about what you’re doing privately. But that comes up completely in the face against what he is saying very publicly, and what you are not necessarily saying publicly to counter what he was doing at the time.

DR. BIRX: Well, you know that I had no access to national media after the event of April 23rd.

After Birx completed a lengthy answer, Keilar pressed her on the claim she had “no access” to national media:

BRIANNA KEILAR: But they were being completely undercut by President Trump at the time. You said you didn’t have access to national media after late April. Yes, you did. You had access to late, to national media… If you chose to speak to them. But you chose not to.

DR. BIRX: Well, Brianna, I knew from the experience I had seen in that White House that if I had done that independently, outside of the White House. I would no longer be in that White House.

Keilar then confronted Birx over her “fawning” praise of Trump early in the pandemic, and drilled down on the statement that Trump had been “so attentive to the scientific literature and the details of the data. And I think his ability to analyze and integrate data that comes out of his long history in business is really been a real benefit during these discussions about medical issues.”

Birx tried to recast her praise for Trump, but Keilar repeatedly challenged her:

BRIANNA KEILAR: How do you feel when you see yourself back then? When you watch yourself saying that?

DR. BIRX: It was the absolute truth. And what’s in the book is the truth. I don’t have two different ways of saying things.

BRIANNA KEILAR: Okay, so okay, so then explain this to me. At what point, how had his ability to analyze and integrate data from his long history in business, as you put it, been a real benefit?

DR. BIRX: So we would have not gotten the European travel ban, the 15 days to slow the spread, the 30 days to slow the spread, and the reopening guidelines if I wasn’t able to convince him by the data of that day in charts and graphs.

BRIANNA KEILAR: I’m not talking about you, I’m talking about him. Because you’re talking about him and his ability to analyze and integrate data from his long history in business. “A real benefit,” you called it.

DR. BIRX: Yes.

BRIANNA KEILAR: How was that a fact, especially considering by your own admission, that travel ban came too late?

DR. BIRX: Well, remember, I didn’t get into the White House until March 2nd. By March 8th or 9th, we had the travel ban. By March 16th, we had the 15 day to slow the spread..

BRIANNA KEILAR: We’re talking about him. You were on CBN saying, very fawningly, about his ability to analyze and integrate data from his long history in business, that it was “a real benefit.” How was that a real benefit? Him, not you. Him.

DR. BIRX: He understood. Yes, because I needed that policy shift. I needed a shift from this is like flu and it’s low risk to this is serious. And because it’s so serious, we’re going to do the 15 days to slow the spread, the 30 days to slow the spread, and the reopening criteria. That was critical to me. Unless he understood that data and graphs, I was not going to get him to those decision making.

Watch above via CNN.