National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins said the latest Trump rally left him feeling “disheartened.”
During a Thursday evening interview on CNN, the top health official discussed the lack of precautionary measures taken by people who were in attendance at President Trump’s crowded campaign rally in Michigan at that same time.
“It just deeply puzzles me, Sanjay,” Collins said to CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta before criticizing the politicization of coronavirus prevention.
“Imagine you were an alien who landed on planet Earth, and you saw that our planet was afflicted by an infectious disease and that masks were an effective way to prevent the spread,” he said. “And yet, when you went around, you saw some people not wearing them and some people wearing them. And you tried to figure out why, and it turned out it was their political party. And you would scratch your head and think, ‘This is just not a planet that has much promise for the future if something that is so straightforward can somehow get twisted into decision-making that really makes no sense.’ So, I’m, as a scientist, I am pretty puzzled and rather disheartened.”
An estimated 5,500 people packed together to witness Trump speak in an aircraft hangar in Freeland, Michigan, some of whom were not wearing masks. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has instituted coronavirus restrictions in her state, including limiting public outdoor gatherings to 100 people or fewer, but there are exceptions for events protected by the First Amendment.
The White House is battling backlash over taped conversations released this week that were between Trump and journalist Bob Woodward in which the president talked about publicly downplaying the coronavirus early on in the pandemic, including at rallies before he stopped holding them for a time because of the health crisis.
In one of the taped interviews, which took place on Feb. 7, Trump called the virus “deadly stuff” and noted that it may be five times “more deadly” than the flu. Trump told Woodward during another conversation on March 19 that he “wanted to always play it down” and that “I still like playing it down because I don’t want to create a panic.”
The White House has argued that Trump did not mislead the public, and as Woodward defends himself from criticism for not releasing the tapes sooner instead of waiting for the release of his new book next week, Trump claimed the journalist knew his comments about downplaying the virus were “good and proper.”
