There is now very little doubt about where the demarcation is between the science experts, Dr. Redfield and the Trump loyalists who massage the message to support the boss.
Robert Redfield was overheard by an **employee of NBC News on a flight from Atlanta to Washington. According to NBC, Redfield criticized Scott Atlas, a radiologist and Fox News talking head added to the taskforce last month.
āEverything he says is false,ā Redfield said about Atlas, NBC reported. Redfield later confirmed he had been talking about Atlas.
Confirmed deaths from Covid-19 in the United States have passed 200,000 and the number of cases has passed 7m.
And more discussion of having the Covid task force come into compliance with the WH messaging on how āsafeā schools are, which was much to the horror of Olivia Troye, the recent top aid to Pence who left in shock and horror at all the altering of the truth, for appearanceās sake.
The documents and interviews show how the White House spent weeks trying to press public health professionals to fall in line with President Trumpās election-year agenda of pushing to reopen schools and the economy as quickly as possible. The president and his team have remained defiant in their demand for schools to get back to normal, even as coronavirus cases have once again ticked up, in some cases linked to school and college reopenings.
The effort included Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the White Houseās coronavirus response coordinator, and officials working for Vice President Mike Pence, who led the task force. It left officials at the C.D.C., long considered the worldās premier public health agency, alarmed at the degree of pressure from the White House.
One member of Mr. Penceās staff said she was repeatedly asked by Marc Short, the vice presidentās chief of staff, to get the C.D.C. to produce more reports and charts showing a decline in coronavirus cases among young people.
The staff member, Olivia Troye, one of Mr. Penceās top aides on the task force, said she regretted being ācomplicitā in the effort. But she said she tried as much as possible to shield the C.D.C. from the White House pressure, which she saw as driven by the presidentās determination to have schools open by the time voters cast ballots.
āYouāre impacting peopleās lives for whatever political agenda. Youāre exchanging votes for lives, and I have a serious problem with that,ā said Ms. Troye, who left the White House in August and has begun speaking out publicly against Mr. Trump.
According to Ms. Troye, Mr. Short dispatched other members of the vice presidentās staff to circumvent the C.D.C. in search of data he thought might better support the White Houseās position.
āI was appalled when I found out that Marc Short was tasking more junior staff in the office of the vice president to develop chartsā for White House briefings, she said.
