‘How can a creep like this show up to work tomorrow & report to @SecAzar, his boss, after trashing him on T.V…’
(Joshua Paladino, Liberty Headlines) President Donald Trump said a fired government scientist who now fancies himself a whistleblower was nothing more than a “disgruntled employee.”
Rick Bright, who recently lost his position as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, persevered, despite a dangerous hypertension condition, in order to bash the Trump administration in House testimony last week.
During a subsequent CBS appearance, he claimed he was the only official to raise concerns about the coronavirus at a Jan. 23 meeting, Fox News reported.
“We’re going to need vaccines and diagnostics and drugs,” Bright told CBS’s 60 Minutes host Norah O’Donnell, recounting his statement from the meeting. “It’s going to take a while and we need to get started.”
Trump responded by calling Bright another “Fake Whistleblower” and a “creep.”
.@60Minutes & third place anchor, @NorahODonnell, are doing everything in their power to demean our Country, much to the benefit of the Radical Left Democrats. Tonight they put on yet another Fake “Whistleblower”, a disgruntled employee who supports Dems, fabricates stories, &…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 18, 2020
….spews lies. @60Minutes report was incorrect, which they couldn’t care less about. Fake News! I don’t know this guy, never met him, but don’t like what I see. How can a creep like this show up to work tomorrow & report to @SecAzar, his boss, after trashing him on T.V.?….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 18, 2020
Bright also said that Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar had responded too slowly to the coronavirus emergency.
Bright said Azar was “intent on downplaying this catastrophic threat,” but he did not offer a motive for Azar’s actions.
“We don’t yet have a national strategy to respond fully to this pandemic,” he said. “The best scientists that we have in our government who are working really hard to try to figure this out aren’t getting that clear, cohesive leadership, strategic plan message yet. Until they get that, it’s still gonna be chaotic.”
“I knew that all of the signs for a pandemic were present,” says government scientist Rick Bright. “It was just a matter of time before that virus then jumped and left China and appeared in other countries.” https://t.co/vEgWhfcD6r pic.twitter.com/oepCICNRO0
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) May 17, 2020
Bright also said that he because he advised the federal government not to use hydroxychloroquine to treat the virus.
He had initially supported the drug’s usage.
“I believe my last-ditch effort to protect Americans from that drug was the final straw that they used and believed was essential to push me out,” he said.
Official accounts show that Bright lost his position at BARDA because of a record of insubordination. He was reassigned to another position.