President Donald Trump pushed a claim that “everyone is lying” amid the coronavirus pandemic, but White House Coronavirus testing czar Brett Giroir says “nobody lies to the American people.”
Trump reposted a tweet on Monday from former game show personality Chuck Woolery, where he claimed “everyone is lying” on the coronavirus pandemic.
The most outrageous lies are the ones about Covid 19. Everyone is lying. The CDC, Media, Democrats, our Doctors, not all but most ,that we are told to trust. I think it's all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election. I'm sick of it.
— Chuck Woolery (@chuckwoolery) July 13, 2020
Giroir, who is also the assistant Secretary for Health under the Trump administration, was asked by NBC’s Savannah Guthrie on Tuesday about the tweet, to which he responded, “I don’t spend time looking at any of that on Twitter because who knows what it means and how it’s interpreted.”
However, Guthrie pressed on the tweet, asking him if he and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doctors are “not lying.”
“Look, we may occasionally make mistakes based on the information we have, but none of us lie,” Giroir responded.
“We are completely transparent with the American people,” he continued.
“We let the American people know what we know. Again, as new information comes, that may need to be changed because we’re learning every day. But nobody lies to the American people. We’re completely transparent and honest.”
Additionally, Giroir expressed confidence in the U.S. being able to “beat” the coronavirus, adding, “It’s not just going to disappear, it’s going to disappear because we take active steps to make it disappear.”
See Giroir’s comments below (starting at 6:45):
During the interview, Giroir also touched on the reports that the White House has “gone negative,” as Guthrie worded it, on Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Asked if the “tactic” bothers him, Giroir responded that they are colleagues, and “none of us are 100% right” and “we admit that.”
As The New York Times reports, White House advisers anonymously provided news outlets over the weekend with inaccurate remarks made by Fauci near the beginning of the outbreak.
Giroir added, “We all need to be working together to solve this problem [of the outbreak]. We have a great collegiate relationship. Tony and I talk all the time,” reiterating, “None of us are always right. That’s just the way things are. That’s why we all work together and will continue to do so.”