President Donald Trump’s claims about taking anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine to ward off contracting the novel coronavirus drew a mixture of skepticism and scorn on a CNN panel Tuesday morning.
Co-host John Berman seemed visibly annoyed after watching a clip of Trump boasting about taking the drug, which has been linked to heart failure in some patients.
“This is not a game,” Berman said. “90,000 Americans have died, and this is just dumb. He just wasted another day where he could have been doing something to help the American people to keep that number down, and instead, he’s preening and bragging about taking a drug that science so far has shown shows no benefits.”
Dr. Carlos Del Rio, an epidemiologist at the Emory University School of Medicine, tried to speculate about why Trump would want to take this drug but nonetheless came away baffled.
“The president must have had pretty significant exposure to COVID and that’s made him decide to do this,” he said. “But I don’t know why he’s decided to take hydroxychloroquine, which we know doesn’t work, versus wearing a mask.”
“It’s about owning the libs,” Berman replied. “He’s taking a drug and preening about it just to own the liberals in his mind, and I don’t think it’s doing a single thing to save a single life.”
Watch the video below.