Report: Trump Campaign Linked to COVID Misinformation
Suzanne Potter, Public News Service – CA
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — In a conference call in May, the Trump campaign encouraged conservative Christians to launch an initiative that promoted misinformation about COVID-19, in a bid to reopen the economy before the election.
That’s the allegation in an investigative report out today in the Washington Spectator.
Anne Nelson, investigative reporter and author of the book “Shadow Network,” said the group recruited doctors to hold a press conference giving the hard sell on hydroxychloroquine, which has been discredited as a way to prevent or cure the coronavirus.
“So the idea is that the public would be more receptive to reopening arguments if there was a cure, such as hydroxychloroquine, and if this argument was made by doctors,” Nelson said.
The group calls itself “America’s Frontline Doctors” and is promoted by the Council for National Policy, which combines right-wing business interests, the Christian Right, and conservative political activists.
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube took down the video of the groups’ July press conference, calling it misinformation.
But the video got millions of hits, especially once President Donald Trump and his son retweeted it.
Nelson said right-wing media then lionized the Frontline Doctors as victims of censorship.
“Their audiences are told that science is fake news,” Nelson said. “They’re told not to trust their doctors. They’re told that the whole world is a big conspiracy, and they don’t know what to believe, so that’s where you have these really tragic consequences.”
Nelson said public mistrust has led to violent confrontations over mask requirements, and to crowded, largely maskless super-spreader events such as Trump’s Tulsa campaign stop and the massive motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota.
Nelson dug into the backgrounds of the group of self-styled COVID experts.
“One is a child psychiatrist. One is an ophthalmologist. Several of them haven’t practiced medicine for a good long while. So for them to be presenting themselves to the public as the reigning experts on COVID and epidemiology is really a stretch.”
Nelson reached out to America’s Frontline Doctors and to a representative of the Council for National Policy for comment but received no response. The implications are grave, as the United States is now closing in on 200,000 deaths from the pandemic.
