Donald Trump's surgeon general found himself in the hot seat on Sunday morning when he was forced to admit that the president lied when he accused the Centers for Disease Control of inflating COVID-19 death toll numbers in an early morning tweet.
Appearing on "State of the Union," Surgeon General Jerome Adams was defending the administration's botched COVID-19 vaccine roll-out when host Tapper blindsided him with the president's tweet that called reports from the CDC on infection rates and deaths "Fake News."
"He just tweeted another lie about coronavirus this morning," Tapper noted. "He tweeted 'The number of cases and deaths of the China virus is far exaggerated in the United States because of the CDC's ridiculous method of determination compared to other countries and many of whom report, very inaccurately and low.'"
"That is not true" the CNN host continued. "The CDC does not 'when in doubt call it COVID.' That is is not the case. And 350,000 Americans have died from the coronavirus. Can you tell the American people, including the families and friends of those who have died from coronavirus, that that is the real death toll? And what is it like as a surgeon general when the president of the United States spreads these lies about the pandemic?"
"Jake, you and I have talked about this and one of the most challenging things about this entire pandemic from all sides has been trying to get health information to the American people in the midst of the politics," Adams parried. "I don't speak for the president. I speak for the Office of the Surgeon General and the public health services and I'm focused on making sure people get the information they need and wash your hands and stay your distance and get the vaccine when it's available."
"350,000 dead Americans, is that an actual number or does the CDC have a bogus way of when in doubt call it COVID as the president claims?" Tapper persisted.
"From a health perspective I have no reason to doubt those numbers and I think people need to be very aware it's not about the deaths as we talked about earlier but the hospitalizations and the capacity," Adams conceded.
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