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FDA Chief Cornered on CNN Over Trump’s False Claim That ’99 Percent of COVID Cases Are Completely Harmless’

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Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday morning, fill-in host Dana Bash put FDA head Dr. Stephen Hahn on the hot seat as she confronted him with Donald Trump’s claim on Saturday night that 99 percent of the COVID-19 cases are harmless, telling the administration official that it was a provable lie.

The CNN host cut right to the chase in her interview, asking about Tump’s dismissive assertion that there is nothing for people to fear about getting the coronavirus.

Referring to the president’s claim, Bash asked, “99 percent of coronavirus cases are, quote, ‘completely harmless.’ No health expert that we have found can back that up, can you?”

“So, we know that cases are surging in the country, we’ve all seen the graphs associated with that. It’s too early and I’m not going to speculate on what the causation is there,” Hahn replied before moving on to telling Americans to follow CDC guidelines of health safety.

“Dr. Hahn, I think it’s important to stick to the question about the 99 percent that the president threw out there. I can tell you it’s not true, and that’s obviously not my opinion. It is fact-based on CDC estimates. Only a third of coronavirus cases are asymptomatic. the WHO, World Health Organization says 20 percent of people who die of coronavirus need oxygen or hospital care,” the CNN host lectured. “This is really important, probably one of the most important misclaims or, frankly, lies the president has put out there. It really affects people’s health if they hear the president saying 99 percent of people are fine. They’re going to change their behavior, potentially get sick and infect other people. how does that make you feel as a member of his own task force?”

“I totally support the CDC and the information that they’re putting out with respect to this pandemic,” the doctor demurred. “I think it’s, again, really important. the guidelines that we’ve emphasized, the data that we have — again, it’s a rapidly evolving situation and we’re going to have more data.”

“Dr. Hahn, I realize this is not easy for you. You are working really hard to protect Americans. I have to ask you flatly to that end, to protect Americans, is the president wrong?” Bash pressed.

“So, I’m not going to get into who is right and who is wrong,” Hahn replied. “What I’ve going to say, Dana, is what I’ve said before. It’s a serious problem that we have, we’ve seen the surge in cases, we must do something to stem the tied tide, and we have this in our power to do this by following the guidance from the task force and the CDC.”

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AMERICA FIRST?

Tim Walz: ‘Racism’ Motivates MAGA Movement to Pardon Derek Chauvin

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Minnesota Governor Tim Walz didn’t mince words when asked what the motivation was for the new movement among MAGA Republicans to convince President Donald Trump to pardon Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who killed George Floyd in 2020.

“Racism. It’s racist. OK? That’s what I believe,” Walz said in an interview with Semafor published Wednesday.

The calls to pardon Chauvin started with an online petition earlier this month, according to The Independent. The pardon push picked up steam this week when conservative commentator Ben Shapiro of the Daily Wire launched a webseries, “The Case of Derek Chauvin.” Shapiro claims the officer was convicted on “extraordinarily scanty evidence,” saying Floyd did not die from having Chauvin’s knee on his neck for over nine minutes, but rather from drugs in Floyd’s system and heart disease.

READ MORE: Derek Chauvin Sentenced to 22-and-a-Half Years for Murder of George Floyd – Less Than Maximum Possible Sentence

Walz, however, disputes this interpretation of events.

“This was a man who murdered George Floyd on TV,” Walz said, adding that a pardon “would undermine the faith in the system.”

The White House, however, has denied that a Chauvin pardon is in Trump’s plans. Earlier this month, Trump said he hadn’t even heard about a push to pardon Floyd’s killer, and on Wednesday, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt repeated that a pardon is “not something he’s considering at this time,” according to The Grio.

However, some commentators, like The Hill’s Juan Williams are skeptical, pointing out that Trump has pardoned two police officers convicted of killing a Black man in the first days of his second term.

In 2020, after the killing, Trump condemned Chauvin.

“We all saw what we saw. It’s hard to conceive anything other than what we did see. It should have never happened,” Trump said.

If Trump were to pardon Chauvin, it would be largely moot. Presidents can only pardon those convicted on federal charges. Chauvin was convicted on both federal and Minnesota state charges. In the event Trump cleared the federal charges, the main thing that would happen is that Chauvin would be moved from the federal prison in Big Spring, Texas to a Minnesota state prison.

Minnesota sentenced Chauvin to 22 and a half years for murder; on the federal level, he was sentenced to 21 years for violating Floyd’s civil rights. Barring a federal pardon, the two sentences are running concurrently, not consecutively.

Image via Shutterstock

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