Americans Stormed President Trump’s Livestream News Conference Demanding Facts On Frontline Doctor’s Claim On Hydroxychloroquine As A Cure For Covid-19

As the U.S. neared 150,000 deaths from the novel coronavirus, President Donald Trump doubled down on his defense of an unproven drug to treat COVID-19 after announcing he would invoke the Defense Production Act to spur generic drug manufacturing in response to the pandemic.

“We’re seeing improvements across the major metro areas and most hot spots. You can look at large portions of our country, it’s — it’s corona-free,” Trump said Tuesday afternoon. “But we are watching very carefully California, Arizona, Texas and most of Florida is starting to head down in the right direction — and I think you’ll see it rapidly head down very soon.”

Asked to clarify his position on the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine, Trump said that “many doctors think it is extremely successful.”

“I took it for a 14-day period, and I’m here. Right? I’m here,” he said. “I don’t think you lose anything by doing it, other than politically. It doesn’t seem to be too popular you know why? Because I recommend it.”

Tuesday’s briefing comes amid a broadened rift between Trump and several of his top public health officials and follows the president’s recent social media promotion of a video hydroxychloroquine, a drug still unproven to treat COVID-19 despite his push.

The nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, reiterated earlier Tuesday that the drug “is not effective” in treating the virus, while FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn recently lamented that it had become “politicized” in the midst of a pandemic.

President Donald Trump speaks to the press in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington,on July 28, 2020.

“The overwhelming, prevailing clinical trials that have looked at the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine have indicated that it is not effective in coronavirus disease,” Fauci told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos on “Good Morning America,” just hours after the president’s retweet Monday night.

In the video that Trump retweeted, his son directly shared and which Twitter later removed for violating its “misinformation policy,” a group of what appeared to be doctors downplayed the effectiveness of masks and lockdowns and praised the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine.