One week after news outlets hailed Donald Trump's pivot to a new, more sober tone on the coronavirus, Trump literally fled the briefing room Tuesday over tough questioning about his promotion of a video of doctors making false Covid-19 claims.
The doctors’ assertions—that neither masks nor social distancing are useful deterrents of coronavirus—were so egregious, in fact, that Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter all took down the video, according to the Washington Post. And one of those supposed medical experts was Stella Immanuel, who has previously claimed that doctors make medicine from alien DNA and the uterine disorder endometriosis is the result of women having sex with demons in their dreams—aka, the ‘demon sperm’ doc. Hoo boy.
Trump, who recirculated the video Monday night in multiple tweets that have since been deleted, defended it at Tuesday's task force briefing. “I think they’re very respected doctors. There was a woman who was spectacular," he said, without specifying which one.
But CNN's Kaitlan Collins doubled back on the topic of Immanuel, who also touted the zero-evidence claim that hydroxychloroquine is a “cure for Covid.”
"The woman that you said is ‘a great doctor’ in that video that you retweeted last night said that masks don’t work and there is a cure for COVID-19—both of which health experts say is not true," Collins said to Trump. "She’s also made videos saying that doctors make medicine using DNA from aliens and that they’re trying to create a vaccine to make you immune from becoming religious. So what’s the logic in retweeting that?"
Trump questioned whether it was same woman. “Well maybe it’s the same, maybe it’s not," he said, "but I can tell you this. She was on air, along with many other doctors, they were big fans of hydroxychloroquine. And I thought she was very impressive, in the sense that from where she came—I don’t know which country she comes from—but she said that she’s had tremendous success with hundreds of different patients and I thought her voice was an important voice, but I know nothing about her.”
But when reporters persisted in asking Trump about his push for mask wearing last week, he abruptly ended the briefing—as in, ran for cover.
Guess what? Trump's not going to win over the suburbs touting the hydroxychloroquine claims of a woman who promotes alien DNA cures and warns of demon sperm.
Watch Trump crash and burn.
