Pamela Brown Rules. Don Jr. Brays. | Winners & Losers in Today’s Green Room

CNN’s Pamela Brown this week grilled National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins on whether the agency experienced an “oversight failure” in light of the admission that their funding inadvertently facilitated gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The NIH and Dr. Anthony Fauci have faced many questions after release of an NIH letter saying the research of EcoHealth Allianc had the “unexpected result” of crossing into gain-of-function.

Brown asked Collins what the revelations say about Fauci’s claim months ago that “the NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute.”

“You’re just now finding out U.S. tax dollars were being used to pay for this risky research in that Wuhan lab two years ago,” she said. “So the question is how can you know what this money is going toward? What kind of research this is going toward in places like the Wuhan lab if you’re just now finding this out from EcoHealth Alliance how the U.S.’ taxpayer dollars were being used?”

Brown kept up the pressure, repeatedly bringing Brown’s cagey responses and deflections back to the central question. “Isn’t this also an oversight failure of the NIH?” the anchor pressed at one point. “Because, the NIH is responsible for taking taxpayer money and giving these grants. So would you say this is also an oversight failure?”

As CNN analyst and Washington Post reporter Josh Rogin explained in a fantastic blow-by-blow analysis thread on Twitter, Brown gave a master class in handling an interview with someone resorting to talking points and jargon to avoid answering direct questions.

It’s not an easy subject on which to be a tough interviewer. One risks being tagged with Rand Paul in unhinged tweets from both fringes. But Brown’s fearless and absolutely professional pursuit of a response was pitch perfect.

Rogin noted in his Twitter thread that Brown ended with a “simple and true” statement, which he quoted: “This is US taxpayer dollars going to risky research and I believe every American deserves to know about it.”

“Amen,” he added. Indeed.

Mediaite’s Josh Feldman writes today’s Media Loser column, following a scandalous and ghoulish marketing gimmick on the part of Donald Trump Jr.

New Mexico authorities are still investigating the tragic death of Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer who was killed on the set of the movie Rust last week. Alec Baldwin reportedly fired the prop gun that killed her and injured director Joel Souza.

In the past few days, there were a couple of gross reactions to the shooting, but Donald Trump Jr. decided to one-up them all.

The former president’s son made some jokes on Instagram about Baldwin over the horrific shooting of a young woman, using meme images to mock Baldwin for past gun control statements, or just mocking the actual incident itself.

And if that wasn’t classy enough for you, Don Jr. is now selling shirts that read “Guns Don’t Kill People. Alec Baldwin Kills People.” The images were posted to his Instagram Stories. (Screenshots)

See, it’s funny because he’s totally roasting a political opponent over an innocent woman’s death.

And yes, this is real. As of this posting, merch about this tragic shooting is being sold on the Don Jr. online store.

On The View Monday, Sunny Hostin called out “ghouls” like Trump Jr. snarking about this tragedy.

He responded by tweeting, “The media is in full on panic mode to protect Baldwin from ANY criticism because they agree with his politics. If the shoe were on the other foot, Baldwin would be the first guy out there pissing on anyone involved & the media would be joining him.”

If you want to sell shirts mocking people you don’t like for merch, fine. That’s completely fair game. You want to sell “Let’s Go Brandon” shirts? Go ahead. You want to sell “Everyone Has a Crazy Aunt Nancy” shirts? More power to you.

Using the tragic death of an innocent woman to hawk your merchandise is sick and deranged.

Read Josh Feldman’s full article, and see the screenshots here.