Dr. Rick Bright was recently fired from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. In his exit, he filed a whistleblower complaint alleging that the Trump administration was not taking the coronavirus seriously. Democrats were eager to hear from the doctor and swiftly scheduled a hearing with the witness last week. For over four hours, Dr. Bright alleged that the HHS routinely ignored his warnings that the U.S needed to boost its PPE supply. If the government didn't turn things around now, he predicted we'd face "the darkest winter in modern history."
The White House rejected the doctor's dire narrative.
"I thought Bright's 'sky is falling' warnings really weren't comporting with reality, boots on the ground," White House trade adviser Peter Navarro reacted on Fox News.
From January, "this White House was off and running" on vaccine development, therapeutics and the rapid production of resources like N95 masks, Navarro argued. They've made "great progress" on each of those fronts.
President Trump, who says he "never met" Bright, labeled him "an angry, disgruntled employee who frankly, according to some people, didn't do a very good job." But Navarro shared an even more unflattering description.
"He's not just a disgruntled employee, in my judgment," Navarro said of Bright. "He's a deserter in the war on the China virus."
Dr. Bright had a chance to go over to NIH and lead a $1 billion initiative to get testing to Americans, Navarro recalled, but "he refused to do that."
"He's complaining he knew it all and we didn't do anything. Well guess what, from Feb. 2 when I emailed him and met with him, we were able to accelerate all of these things. So the idea this White House wasn't moving as fast as it could..."
"This is politics," Navarro added. "This is a disgruntled Obama employee on the hill."
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