VIDEO-Rachel Maddow Takedown of Trump, Fox News on Hydroxychloroquine

Rachel Maddow executed a long, thorough, and devastating takedown of the relentless cheerleading about the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine from Fox News and President Donald Trump, which has quietly stopped after recent studies here and abroad found that drug can have severe and even fatal side effects when used as an off-label treatment for the coronavirus.

It is a common drug used to  prevent malaria.  You may have taken it before  traveling overseas, if you were  trying not to get malaria,” Maddow said, introducing her segment. “But  most likely you never heard of  this drug until last month when  the primetime Fox News hosts  and then the president started  incessantly promoting it on a  daily, sometimes hourly basis,  as what they were quite sure was  a miracle cure for coronavirus.  There’s no big deal, for this  coronavirus thing, we’ve got a  cure already.  They promoted it to despite zero  clinical trials and next to no  evidence of its effectiveness.  But boy were they insistent.” 

What then followed was a damning, two-minute-long supercut of nearly 30 instances of Trump, as well as Fox hosts Brian KilmeadeSteve Doocy, Lou DobbsTucker CarlsonSean Hannity, and Laura Ingraham touting the drug’s potential if not outright singing the drug’s praises.

Beginning in middle of March,  hydroxychloroquine was mentioned  hundreds and hundreds and  hundreds of times on the Fox  News channel, particularly by  its primetime hosts, and by the  president, from the White House  podium,” Maddow explained, before noting a stark reversal about a week ago, when   those mentions disappeared almost overnight. “ They just stopped bringing it  up.  And we don’t know why it is,” Maddow noted. “ But yesterday, we did get the  results of a new study, which  is yet to be peer recovered, but  it is the largest to date  involving the use of  hydroxychloroquine among 368  veterans in veterans hospitals  across the U.S. In that trial,  the drug was found to have no  benefit, and there were actually more deaths reported  among those  who were given the drug than  those who were given standard  care.”

The president, when asked about the disappointing results of the VA study at Wednesday’s coronavirus task force briefing, quickly shrugged off the question, saying “I don’t know of the report.” Gone was the unbridled enthusiasm for the drug so evident a month ago.

The MSNBC host then pulled another thread to the story, the breaking news from Wednesday that the federal government’s lead scientist tasked with developing a vaccine for the coronavirus, Dr. Rick Bright, was abruptly demoted earlier this week, a move that he claims was payback because he refused to pursue more research funding for hydroxychloroquine.

It is one thing to not have  leadership at the federal level  in response to this crisis.  It is actually a whole ‘nother  thing to have the president  putting American lives at risk  every time he blurts something  made up or that he thought he  understood from TV into the  microphone at the White House  briefing room,” Maddow said in a very, let-that-sink-in tone. “ I won’t tell  you my opinion about the  president and how he should be  treated. But as a general matter,  I think we should all agree that  perhaps there should be a more  concerted effort to stop the  misinformation about this  disease, particularly if it is  potentially deadly  misinformation.”

“If somebody is repeatedly  misinforming the American  public, about important things  having to do with this disease,  don’t broadcast that,” Maddow exclaimed, before throwing several not-so-veiled jabs at both Trump and Fox News. “ Don’t listen to people who are  lying to you about this disease.  Don’t broadcast their comments. C ertainly don’t keep doing it  day after day, when they’ve  proven themselves to be lying  day after day.  And honestly, it doesn’t matter who it is. Show some responsibility, honestly.”

Watch the video above, via MSNBC.

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