Peter Navarro calls Dr. Bright 'a deserter' in the war on coronavirus
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro reacts to Dr. Bright's testimony as President Trump works to secure PPE stockpile.
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White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told “Outnumbered Overtime” Thursday that ousted Trump administration scientist Dr. Rick Bright is “not just a disgruntled employee, in my judgment, he’s a deserter in the war on the China virus.”
Bright, who filed a whistleblower complaint claiming he was removed from his post for disagreeing with the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus, said Thursday that officials at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) were “dismissive” of his warning about the pandemic and said that if the government doesn’t follow his guidance “2020 will be the darkest winter in modern history.”
Bright, the former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, submitted written testimony on Wednesday and testified before the House Energy & Commerce Subcommittee on Thursday.
“I will never forget the emails I received from Mike Bowen [of Prestige Ameritech, the largest manufacturer of face masks in the U.S.] indicating ... that our N95 respirator supply was completely decimated and he said, ‘We’re in deep [expletive], the world is and we need to act,'" Bright said during Thursday's testimony. "I pushed that forward to the highest levels I could in HHS and got no response.”
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In response, Navarro called Bright "a disgruntled Obama employee on the Hill" before explaining his "harsh words" in calling Bright a "deserter."
“He had a chance,” Navarro said. “He was asked to go over to NIH [National Institutes of Health] and lead a $1 billion initiative to get testing to the people of America and he refused to do that.”
“If you look at it [the whistleblower complaint] very carefully … he's complaining, basically, that he knew it all and we weren’t doing anything,” Navarro added. “Well, guess what? From February 2, when I exchanged some emails with him … and we worked with HHS, we were able to accelerate all of these things, vaccine development, therapeutics, and masks, on behalf of this White House, at the direction of this White House.”
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Navarro then said that “the idea that this White House wasn't moving as fast as it could from January 30,” when the president made what he called the “courageous decision” to restrict flights to the U.S. from China is inaccurate.
“This is politics,” he said.
Fox News’ Andrew O’ Reilly contributed to this report.
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