NatSec Adviser O’Brien Defends US Covid Response in First Interview Since Recovering: Testing Has Been a ‘Miracle’

White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien appeared on Face the Nation for his first TV interview since he recovered from coronavirus.

He opened by telling Margaret Brennan, “I’m very grateful. I was blessed I had a light case.” O’Brien thanked the White House medical team and his colleagues in the administration for being supportive.

“It’s great to b back, and I’ve been very blessed,” he said. “But it’s a tough thing. It’s a nasty virus and it’s done great damage to our country. And my heart goes out to the folks who didn’t make it.”

Brennan questioned him about the access to testing he gets as a high-ranking White House official and when most Americans will get that kind of access:

“Not all Americans receive the kind of elite care that you are able to. Unless you work in Major League Baseball or at the White House, you don’t have access to regular asymptomatic testing. That’s just not where we are as a country. How long before the average American can get that?”

“We’re working on testing,” O’Brien said. “What’s happened with testing in America is really a miracle. There’s no country in th world that’s come close to what America’s doing on testing.”

At one point Brennan said, “We were supposed to be at five million tests a day at this point, we’re not nearly that. We’re now at nearly five million infections as a country.”

“This came out of China and we’ve been fighting it ever since,” O’Brien said. “We’ve got to remember where it came from, but we’re going to fight like heck.”

You can watch above, via CBS.