In case you missed it, there was a stunning revelation on MSNBC’s AM Joy show that the Trump administration has chosen a former Dallas area dog breeder Brian Harrison who has zero background in medicine or public health, to lead the nation’s coronavirus task force. The Trump administration apparently chose Harrison to replace outgoing Dr Rick Bright, a career vaccine expert who took a cautionary stance towards Trump’s favorite drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for covid-19. Because the vaccine expert refused to follow Trump’s blind push for hydroxychloroquine as covid-19 treatment, he was pushed aside and has been replaced by Harrison, a former dog breeder.
Host Joy Reid specifically said, “Dr Bright is a career vaccine expert and similar to an increasingly silent Dr Fauci, he insisted on sticking to the science and he seems to be the polar opposite of the guy now heading the administration’s coronavirus task force, Brian Harrison. He[Harrison] is a Health and Human Services[HHS] aide who for six years ran Dallas Labradoodles–no that is not code for some Texas antiviral operation meant to save lives–instead, it’s exactly what it sounds like. The new HHS leader of the covid-19 response does not have a formal background in medicine or public health but instead, was a dog trainer. This isn’t just cronyism over normal politics, this is cronyism over saving lives.”
Even the staunchest of President Trump’s supporters will agree that for a global pandemic that has already claimed 50,000 lives in the U.S., it is not a lot to ask that the person chosen to lead the administration’s response be someone with a background in medicine or public health. That person is definitely not Brian Harrison who appears to be per AM Joy’s reporting, a political crony.
It also bears pointing out that at a recent press conference in Austin, Texas, Governor Greg Abbott said a major reason why he decided to reopen the state for business despite the state’s lagging covid-19 testing numbers was because he had been assured by Trump’s coronavirus task force that Texas would be provided with all the testing supplies it needed. One can reasonably infer given this new development that the assurances the Texas Governor was referring to probably came from former Dallas dog breeder Brian Harrison.
Bottom line folks, incompetence has been a recurring theme surrounding Trump administration’s coronavirus response whether that be from the serious foot dragging we are witnessing with the testing, the numerous contradictory statements the administration issues to the public regarding safe practices, etc. Where, as here, the Trump administration settles on a dog trainer with zero background in medicine or public health to head the nation’s coronavirus task force, the public has every right to assume that the administration is not taking the threat posed by covid-19 seriously, even after it has claimed the lives of 50,000 Americans. As Joy Reid correctly stated, this is not just incompetence, this is deadly incompetence.
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