The more President Trump praises it, the more the media have tried to vilify the drug hydroxychloroquine as an evil drug that will do more harm than good in the coronavirus fight. At his cabinet meeting on Tuesday, a reporter asked the president about the recent Veterans Affairs study that actually resulted in a higher mortality rate for patients on HCQ. Trump quickly refuted the claim.
The study in question, Trump explained, was a "phony," for the drug was administered to people already in really bad shape and "ready to die." He added that the people who administered the drug were "obviously not friends of the administration."
When VA Secretary Robert Wilkie spoke up to correct the inaccurate media reports, Trump turned to the reporter who had posed the question and chided him for not paying attention.
"Can you hear him?" Trump asked the reporter. "Because I think it's important. Do you want to listen? Because I don't even think you're listening. Why don't you listen to him."
WATCH:
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) May 19, 2020
Important FACT CHECK on hydroxychloroquine courtesy of VA Secretary Robert Wilkie.@realDonaldTrump to the reporter who asked the question: "Do you want to listen? Because I don't even think you're listening."
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"That was not a VA study," Wilkie explained. "Researchers took VA numbers and they did not clinically review them, they were not peer reviewed. They did not even look at the various comorbidities the patients that were referenced in that study had."
Trump announced on Monday that he's been taking a dose of HCQ for 10 days now. Frustrated by the media onslaught about the drug, Trump mused that "if anyone else was promoting it they'd say it was the greatest thing ever."
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