Impeached president Donald Trump's party of literal killers is recruiting pro-Trump doctors to go on television to say that there's no danger in reopening the economy now, the AP reports. It received a leaked conference call "with a senior staffer for the Trump reelection campaign organized by CNP Action, an affiliate of the GOP-aligned Council for National Policy" in which participants discussed the doctors’ plot.
The Trump campaign official on the call, Tim Murtaugh, confirmed to AP that they were recruiting doctors to say that Trump is right and it is safe to go back to work and shopping and normal life. He didn't say whether they were also trying to find doctors who would endorse Trump's supposed ingestion of hydroxychloroquine, but chances are if they find any willing to tell people to go expose themselves to a potentially lethal virus, those same doctors will be fine with Trump's new pharmaceutical regimen. "Anybody who joins one of our coalitions is vetted," Murtaugh said Monday. "And so quite obviously, all of our coalitions espouse policies and say things that are, of course, exactly simpatico with what the president believes. [...] The president has been outspoken about the fact that he wants to get the country back open as soon as possible."
Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, an epidemiology professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, is appropriately horrified. "I find it totally irresponsible to have physicians who are touting some information that's not anchored in evidence and not anchored in science," El-Sadr said. "What often creates confusion is the many voices that are out there, and many of those voices do have a political interest, which is the hugely dangerous situation we are at now." Murtaugh's answer in a nutshell: fuck science. And saving lives. "Our job at the campaign is to reflect President Trump's point of view," Murtaugh said. "We are his campaign. There is no difference between us and him."
There is indeed "a coalition of doctors who are extremely pro-Trump" Republican activist Nancy Schulze said on the call. They had "been preparing and coming together for the war ahead in the campaign on health care," but now "we have doctors that are […] in the trenches, that are saying 'It's time to reopen.'" What trenches those doctors are in isn't clear, but chances are pretty damned good they are nowhere near the actual novel coronavirus battleground. I would guess they are more like dentists, ophthalmologists, chiropractors, and orthopedists. But they'll do, the participants on the call agreed.
"The president's going to get tagged by the fake news media as being irresponsible and not listening to doctors," Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, said on the call. "And so we have to gird his loins with a lot of other people. So I think what Nancy's talking about […] this is the critical juncture that we highlight them." Try to get the image of Schlapp girding Trump's loins out of your head now. Sorry.
Meanwhile, a 60% majority of actual Americans who want themselves and their loved ones to stay alive are very concerned that going back to work now will endanger their household. Even parents who are overwhelmed by having to be homeschoolers remain opposed to the idea of reopening schools in the fall, months down the line.