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Dr. Deborah Birx, the former coordinator of Trump’s White House coronavirus task force, says nothing in her four decades of public service has prepared her for the chaotic Trump White House or politically charged management pandemic, telling “Face the Nation” that she “always” considered leaving her post.
In an interview broadcast Sunday on “Face the Nation,” Birx told moderator Margaret Brennan that even her close colleagues with whom she had worked for decades of researching the AIDS virus had questioned her political allegiance in the midst of ‘a wave of criticism of Trump’s response to the White House. to the virus.
“I mean, why would you want to do this to yourself every day? Colleagues I’ve known for decades … decades in this experience, because I was in the White House, decided that I was became that political person, even though they had known me forever. I had to ask myself every morning, is there anything I think I can do that would be helpful in responding to this pandemic and that is something something that I wonder about every night, ”she told Brennan.
Birx, who had been appointed by former President Obama as the trustee of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), joined the Trump administration in March 2020 to help coordinate the response to the COVID-19.
She added, “When it got to a point where I wasn’t going anywhere and it was like right before the election, I wrote a very detailed communication plan of what was to happen the day after the election. and how it was to be carried out. And there was a lot of promise that it would happen. “
Birx explained to Brennan that it was clear at that point that the 2020 election had been a factor in the reduced communication from the deadly virus task force. She said she had been “censored” by the White House, barred for a time from making national media, but insisted that she never intentionally withheld information from the public herself.
More than 400,000 Americans have died from the virus since then, and millions of people have lost their jobs due to the economic fallout.
In her interview, the career health executive addressed the criticism she received towards the end of her White House tenure and the pressure that followed on her family for spending time at a vacation home in family after the Thanksgiving vacation, despite advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urging Americans. not to travel or mingle with those who are not at home at the time.
She told Brennan that she plans to retire “within the next four to six weeks” from her current position at the CDC, ending a four-decade career in the public service as an officer of the army, administrator of PEPFAR AIDS Research, and finally a tumultuous present himself as one of the main American officials guiding the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Questions regarding Birx’s role in the current administration were also raised on Friday, as Steven Portnoy of CBS News asked the White House press secretary if Birx was still part of the COVID response team. -19 from President Biden.
“I’m going to have to come back to that one,” Press Secretary Jen Psaki said. “That’s a great question.”
More Birx’s interview airs this Sunday on “Face the Nation” on CBS at 10:30 am EST.
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