Peter Navarro: Coronavirus whistleblower is ‘deserter in the war’ against pandemic

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro hit back at the former top vaccine official who filed a whistleblower complaint about the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Dr. Rick Bright, who was ousted from his position as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority last month, testified before Congress on Thursday about the administration’s handling of the pandemic and its race for a potential cure. Bright was removed from his key role after expressing concerns over the federal government’s response and claimed that his removal was because he resisted efforts to promote an “unproven” coronavirus treatment.

A Health and Human Services Department spokeswoman said his demotion to a position within the National Institutes of Health was a “personnel matter” that was under review but that the department “strongly disagrees with the allegations and characterizations” made by Bright.

Navarro, a strong Trump ally within the administration, defended the White House’s vaccine plan while appearing on Outnumbered Overtime with Harris Faulkner on Fox News following Bright’s testimony. The trade adviser said the United States has been rapidly working on the development of a potential vaccine and therapeutics, as well as producing needed personal protection equipment such as N95 masks.

Regarding Bright’s testimony, Navarro called his sentiments a product of being a “disgruntled Obama employee.”

“He’s not just a disgruntled employee, in my judgment,” he said. “He is a deserter in the war on the China virus. Why do I say that? Those are harsh words. He had a chance. He was asked to go over to NIH and lead a $1 billion initiative to get testing to the people of America, and he refused to do that.”

In Bright’s testimony, he claimed that the administration missed “early warning signals” to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus. At one point, he brought up an email from Mike Bowen, the hearing’s other witness and the vice president of medical supply company Prestige Ameritech. The email, one that Bright said he would “never forget,” said the U.S. supply of N95 masks was at a perilous level and that the world was in “deep shit.” Bright said he tried to push this warning to the highest levels he could at the HHS but received no response.

“From that moment, I knew that we were going to have a crisis for healthcare workers because we were not taking action,” said Bright. “We were already behind the ball.”

Navarro blamed China for the outbreak of the virus and its continued reluctance to release information over accurate numbers of its own data related to cases and the number of deaths.

“Let’s go through the timeline,” Navarro said. “November: China spawns the virus, probably in that weapons lab in Wuhan, hides the virus for two months behind a shield of the World Health Organization, as it does this, according to their own data. They vacuumed up all of the PPE across the world, including from here, basically hoarded it, kept it from our doctors and nurses in Milan and New York and everywhere in between, killing people because of that. And then, afterwards, they basically [are] profiteering now from it.”

The U.S. intelligence community reportedly believes that the Chinese Communist Party downplayed the severity of the virus’s outbreak last year, which originated in Wuhan, and that it continues to mislead the world about the number of cases and deaths within its borders related to the COVID-19 virus. In response to these accusations, Beijing has denied any cover-up of its response.

The Trump administration has also accused Chinese Communist Party-affiliated hackers of conducting cyberattacks to steal U.S. research into possible treatments and vaccines. Trump recently said he has not spoken to Chinese President Xi Jinping despite having a “very good relationship.”

“Right now, I don’t want to speak to him,” Trump said.

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