Former Top Trump Health Official Admits ‘We Could Have Done Better’ Responding to Covid

Former senior Trump administration health official Adm. Brett Giroir admitted late last week that the Trump administration “could have done better” responding to the coronavirus pandemic.

CNN’s New Day on Friday played a clip of former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham, who came out with a book last week about her time in the White House that paints the previous administration in an unflattering light, saying that the Trump administration’s handling of the pandemic “was tragic.”

“I think that the president’s vanity got in the way. He was working for his base. He was not working for this country,” she said the previous Tuesday. The clip fast-forwarded to her saying, “I was part of that. And I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself with respect to Covid. I don’t think I can ever redeem myself.”

Co-host Brianna Keilar asked Giroir if he agreed with Grisham’s “assessment of how the White House handled this under [Donald] Trump.”

Giroir fired back at Grisham.

“I don’t know her view. I don’t remember Stephanie Grisham ever being in the Situation Room and the task force when we debated the issues,” he said. “I know in that sit room, mostly under the vice president, Dr. [Deborah] Birx, Dr. [Anthony] Fauci, we were all focused on public health and there was no other thoughts than that. She has a different view of the president because she circles with him in places that I don’t.”

Giroir continued:

But I can just tell you from my point of view from the task force, we let science lead. We did our best with an unknown virus. And I’ll just leave it at that. The vaccines are here because of Operation Warp Speed. Much of the testing is here because we put over $6.5 billion and mobilize the community. So you know, we laid the foundation. The Biden team has taken the baton and are running these last legs of the race. It is a tragedy, but it is also an American success story of the things we’ve been able to accomplish.

“But you were in a room with people who did not put people in public health first,” said Keilar. “Do you think that’s fair to say?”

“I don’t think it’s fair to say,” replied Giroir.

Keilar asked if Trump “put public health first.”

Giroir responded that Trump “was very active in the task force up until the mid-summer and he did the things that the docs advised” such as “15 days to slow the spread” and “30 days more to slow the spread.”

“He didn’t wear masks. He talked about bleach,” said Keilar. “He talked about hydroxychloroquine.”

Giroir conceded, “Yes, these are certain issues.”

He continued:

There was not much mask wearing at the White House. And we were very concerned about that. And there was not much mask wearing at rallies even though they were made available. These were things that I wish would have been done, for sure.

Hydroxychloroquine was debated, but, you know, after a period of time, everyone on the task force, all the docs were pretty clear. And I think I remember it was a Sunday morning show when I said it was time to move on from that.

So, you know, yes, I would say overall the president was supportive of the public health measures, but yes, we could have done better with mask wearing.

And there are a few other issues that, you know, we certainly wish would have gone different ways.

I don’t believe, because I was there at the press conference, I don’t believe that the president was encouraging people to put bleach.

Keilar again asked Giroir if he agreed with Grisham’s opinion of how the Trump administration handled Covid.

“I don’t know what medical school or public health school that Stephanie went to. She certainly wasn’t on the task force or involved,” he said. “And let me just remind you that, despite vaccines, limitless supplies of testing, more people will die or at least as many in the first year of the Biden administration as did the last year of the Trump administration.”

He continued:

So it’s not as easy as saying we’ll just replace the president or the president did something bad because this is a complex problem that President [Joe] Biden and his administration are facing the same way that we faced.

I can tell you that the task force, particularly under the vice president, always gave what we believed was the best public health information. Sometimes that changed because the information changed. As you see the information and the data changing with the current administration.

But I do believe that we provided the best evidence with some of the caveats I already said. Mask wearing, you know, clearly that’s something that we wanted to promote more. And I believe that senior members of the administration could have done more for that. But pretty much they followed the advice that we gave them.

Watch above, via CNN.