A public health physician put President Donald Trump’s administration on blast on Thursday after The Wall Street Journal reported that the White House looks to fire thousands of federal health workers.
“When you gut the very teams, scientists, physicians, leaders, who have been trained, who have studied, who have lived experience… so that we are not unable to neutralize threats, you only proliferate threats in the United States and you proliferate those threats abroad,” said Dr. Chris T. Pernell on “CNN NewsNight” with Abby Phillip.
“This is not pseudoscience. This is not conjecture. This is not imagination. This is hardcore truth.”
The report notes that — on top of slashing jobs at the Department of Health and Human Services — the White House is preparing an executive order that would also call for the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other health agencies to make cuts, as well.
Pernell, the regent-at-large for the American College of Preventive Medicine and director of the NAACP Center for Health Equity, declared that the Trump administration didn’t learn its “lessons” following the COVID-19 pandemic. She said there are now “proliferating” threatstopublic health in the president’s second term.
Former Republican National Committee spokesperson Madison Gesiotto, in her appearance on the CNN panel, cited declining trust in public health officials, prompting Pernell to question her argument. It led to a heated clash between the two.
“I think there’s legitimate questions as to whether we can trust the so-called experts and I think people across the country feel this sentiment,” argued Gesiotto, adding that she’s not saying “doctors are bad or every expert is bad.”
She continued, “But I think those are legitimate questions because we were told this vaccine is safe, this will stop the spread of COVID and then they evolved into saying it’s not going to stop —.”
Moments later, Pernell called out Gesiotto over her “misinformation” as she noted that both her father and cousins died as a result of pandemic, adding that she volunteered for a vaccine trial and her sister was a “long COVID survivor.”
The two clamored to speak over one another before Pernell pointed to the White House’s “fundamental lack of understanding” when it comes to public health.
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“And you see it with projections of cutting NIH, projections of cutting HHS, CDC, CMS. It doesn’t make sense,” Pernell said.
“And you’re not going to find any physician that’s going to sit here and tell you that those actions are tantamount to good health and well-being.”