Dr. Deborah Birx is a retired U.S. Army colonel, who was appointed to her current job at the State Department by former President Obama, but that didn't stop Ali Velshi from attempting to do some petty fact checking of Birx's positive assessment of President Trump on Friday's The Last Word.
Velshi could not understand how someone with such non-partisan credentials could have anything good to say about Trump. As he prepared to play a brief clip of Birx on the Christian Broadcasting Network, he told science journalist and hyperbolic Joe Biden supporter Laurie Garrett that it "made me sad."
What was so saddening to Velshi was Birx telling CBN, "He's been so attentive to the scientific literature and the details and the data and I think his ability to analyze and integrate data that comes out of his long history in business is really been a real benefit."
Since this did not conform with Velshi's preconceived notion of Trump being a science denier, he tried to fact check Birx's personal assessment of the president, "Laurie Garrett, if that were true, you and I would have no business talking on a regular basis. In fact, most of what you and I do is interpreting and correcting the record for what Donald Trump has been telling this country."
Garrett agreed, "It's really hard to hear that." She then added, "I don't know exactly what's going on inside the White House, none of us do." It's true that Garrett and Velshi don't know what is going on inside the White House, but Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci do and they both resent the attempt by the media to drive a wedge between them and Trump.
She further alleged that the White House does not know what it's doing, saying, "Any idiot can stick their head out and see we can't keep up."
Here is a transcript for the March 28 show:
MSNBC
The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
10:08 PM ET
ALI VELSHI: Laurie Garrett, I had had a moment today-- look, we've been working, you've been working endlessly and talking about this for weeks but I had a moment today that made me sad. It was Deborah Birx appeared in an interview on the Christian Broadcasting Network. Deborah Birx is someone this country has come to rely on in those press conferences where Donald Trump goes off and says what he wants and you look to Fauci and you look to Birx to say what is really going on. This is what she said today.
BEGIN CLIP
DEBORAH BIRX: He's been so attentive to the scientific literature and the details and the data and I think his ability to analyze and integrate data that comes out of his long history in business is really been a real benefit.END CLIP
VELSHI: Laurie Garrett, if that were true, you and I would have no business talking on a regular basis. In fact, most of what you and I do is interpreting and correcting the record for what Donald Trump has been telling this country.
LAURIE GARRETT: It's really hard to hear that. I don't know exactly what's going on inside the White House, none of us do. We're not there and there’s a huge swirl of speculation and misinformation around all the details but the one thing we do know and Mike pointed this out in an opinion piece he had in today's New York Time, one thing we do know is there's no strategic plan. The plan seems to change every day. Every press conference. We get a different-- we shall march down this road. We shall march down that road. I don't know if you can hear around me, but all I hear all night long here in Brooklyn is sirens, all day long.VELSHI: Yeah, that’s right
GARRETT: A steady parade of ambulances. And anybody, any idiot can stick their head out and see we can't keep up.
