It only took a few weeks and some light testing for President Trump and Fox News to back up after openly promoting and pushing an anti-malaria drug to beat COVID-19 like America had suddenly become Hamsterdam.
Once touted by Trump as a “game-changer,” the president has gone full Mariah Carey “I don’t know her” meme now that a VA study found that the drug isn’t just ineffective against coronavirus, but it actually could lead to a higher death rate.
And you know who else has followed suit? Trump’s personal YouTube station, Fox News.
“The fact of the matter is we don’t know,” Dr. Mehmet Oz told the hosts of Fox & Friends on Wednesday. “Thankfully, these medications are prescriptions only… We are better off waiting for the randomized trials Dr. Fauci has been asking for.”
That’s a big switch-up considering just a few weeks ago Dr. Oz—who’s about as reliable for medical advice as Dr. Dre and Dr. J—was discounting Dr. Anthony Fauci, a real doctor who has insisted that America needed more studies.
“He’s a pro and I respect him a lot, but a small study that shows statistical significance is a really important observation,” Dr. Oz claimed on April 6. “If it takes me 30,000 patients to show a difference, is that better than showing a difference in 62 patients? If a small trial demonstrates statistically significant differences, you should respect it,” the Daily Beast reports.
And don’t forget that Trump ran out here and spent $29 million of taxpayers’ money to buy up all the damn hydroxychloroquine and now he’s acting like he doesn’t know what the hell is going on.
“I don’t know of the report,” Trump said when asked about the drug being a waste of time during his daily coronavirus briefing. “Obviously there have been some very good reports and perhaps this one’s not a good report. But we’ll be looking at it.”
He’s seen that shit. He was hoping that this was going to be a moment for him and his administration in which he would look like the hero for buying the drug early, but as with most things regarding this administration, Trump just ended up looking like an impatient “dicktator” who refused to listen to the doctor, the REAL doctor, who told him that touting the drug was a bad idea.