On two separate occasions on Wednesday (and on their website), CNN dismissed White House Coronavirus Task Force hire and neuroradiologist Dr. Scott Atlas as merely a “Fox News guest” who’s part of an “echo chamber” that’s murdering “tens of thousands of Americans.”
Along with a CNN.com article, the segments totaled five minutes and 42 seconds, which was five minutes and 42 seconds more than they gave Janice Dean being removed from testifying before New York lawmakers about losing her in-laws to the coronavirus.
That’s also five minutes and 42 seconds more than they’ve spent apologizing for propping up Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY), the man behind a nursing home policy that led to the deaths of thousands of New Yorkers. But we digress.
Starting with the second segment, CNN Tonight host Don Lemon rudely ignored Atlas’s distinguished career and instead boiling him down to a talking head: “[I]n the middle of the worst public health crisis in the middle of a century, Trump is turning to Fox News guest for medical advice instead of Dr. Fauci.”
Lemon refused to inform viewers that not only has Atlas been with Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, but he spent over a decade as a professor and chief of neuroradiology at Stanford University Medical Center, edited a leading textbook on the topic, and been a leading global expert in using MRI’s to diagnose and treat brain and spine conditions. But again, we digress.
After showing a July 15 exchange between Atlas and FNC host Sandra Smith, Lemon blasted FNC as “an echo chamber” wondered “how dangerous” is it to CNN medical expert Dr. Jonathan Reiner.
Reiner replied that the “echo chamber” Atlas has been a part of is “killing tens of thousands of Americans.”
He expanded on his nonsense, citing the podcast of MSNBC contributor, former Obama official, and Trump-Russia junkie Chuck Rosenberg (click “expand”):
Yeah, so the President won't have Doctors Fauci or Birx come to the podium because they are now prone to tell the truth and the truth is unpleasant for the President. The truth refutes his narrative, so the President brings Dr. Atlas, somebody who understands that it's easy to convince somebody if you tell them exactly what they already believe, so he's — that's his role at the White House, to tell the President what the President already believes.
You know, I listen to a fabulous pod cast this weekend with Chuck Rosenberg when he interviewed Captain Sully Sullenberg and what Captain — what Captain Sullenberger [sic] said was that in a cockpit and in any kind of place like an operating room or boardroom or oval office, one of the most critical things is to have people who are willing to tell you what you don't want to hear and the absence of that has caused planes to crash and the absence of that now is killing tens of thousands of people in this country. No one will stand up and tell this President that he’s wrong. Has anyone told the President that the pandemic didn't start in 1917? Because he says that every day. My guess is that no one is wing to tell him what he keeps saying is nonsense. That's just a minor thing, so he now brings in a physician to tell him what he wants to hear. The only way we’re going to really move beyond this is with new leadership.
Hours earlier, White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins joined CNN Newsroom’s 2:00 p.m. Eastern hour on the heels of the CNN.com story she penned under this title: “Trump adds coronavirus adviser who echoes his unscientific claims.”
The ever-pompous and partisan Brianna Keilar offered the lead-in by noting Atlas’s hire “at a time when the President finds himself increasingly at odds with medical experts in his own administration” and the U.S. leading the world “not for strength or leadership in this pandemic, but for how out of control the virus is.”
Collins explained that Atlas was only “formally joining” the White House this week after having “been informally advising the President for weeks, after he first caught a glimpse of him on Fox News, where he's appeared pretty regularly since the month of May.”
The Alabama graduate then gripped that Atlas has been “one of the medical experts who has a very close public stance with what the President thinks about COVID-19 on reopening schools, national lockdowns, college athletes playing football this fall.”
Like she did on TV, Collins employed anonymous White House sources to trash Atlas and undercut his credentials as a way for Zuckerville to imply Atlas was not only unworthy of being taken seriously, but heard (click “expand”):
In a statement on his hiring, White House spokesman Judd Deere called Atlas “a world renowned physician and scholar of advanced medical care and health care policy” who has been brought in “to help defeat this virus from China. We are all in this fight together, and only the media would distort and diminish Dr. Atlas' highly acclaimed career simply because he has come to serve the President.”
With the coronavirus spreading largely unchecked across the US, Trump has called on hesitant governors to reopen their states and school administrators to put children back in the classroom. Though Trump believed his push would help woo suburban voters, some districts have increasingly pivoted to virtual models while others, such as some school districts in Georgia, have opened only to see a cluster of new cases.
Atlas has been an extensive critic of severe lockdowns and publicly agreed with the President on all of those above measures. He joins Trump's team at a time when he finds himself increasingly at odds with the other medical experts in his administration, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx.
(....)
A trained medical doctor who attended the University of Chicago School of Medicine, Atlas has advised Republicans in the past, including Rudy Giuliani, the President's personal attorney who has also fanned conspiracy theories about coronavirus. Now Atlas will serve as an adviser to the President who works out of the Executive Office Building next door to the White House. (The White House declined to say whether Atlas was receiving a taxpayer-funded salary.)
Several of the President's allies welcomed Atlas to his team, viewing him as a voice with medical credentials that agrees with their skepticism of guidance and advice from experts such as Fauci and Birx. On his radio show this week, Rush Limbaugh praised Atlas and said "he is countering Fauci."
But Atlas isn't only seen as someone who can counter the medical opinions of the nation's top infectious disease expert....Two officials voiced concern that Trump brought Atlas in several months into the pandemic to diminish the voices of medical experts he disagrees with.
Several of the health professionals on the task force raised questions about Atlas, asking each other who he was and what his role would be.
Atlas appears to have settled into his new position quickly. He recently joined other officials for an outing at the Trump Hotel, has been on several calls to strategize the administration's response and even led another by himself, two sources said.
In other words, CNN continued its poisonous march on Tuesday to divide the American people and crush their wills to hope for a better tomorrow and making clear that it all but views those against their anti-reopening, anti-hope, mental health-crippling, and pro-lockdown worldview as mortal enemies.
CNN’s malignant campaign against those they disagree with was made possible by (and thus supported by) advertisers such as ADT, Sandals, Swiffer, T-Mobile, and USAA. Follow the links to the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page.
To see the relevant CNN transcripts from August 12, click “expand.”
CNN Newsroom
August 12, 2020
2:28 p.m. Eastern[ON-SWCREEN HEADLINE: Coronavirus Pandemic; Trump Adds Coronavirus Adviser Who Echoes His Unscientific Claims]
BRIANNA KEILAR: Under President Trump, 164,000 Americans have died from coronavirus, tens of millions of jobs have been lost and the United States is currently number one in the world — not for strength or leadership in this pandemic, but for how out of control the virus is. Today, though, we're learning more about the President's new medical advisor, Dr. Scott Atlas, whose public stance on the pandemic echoes Trump's unscientific claims. He was introduced for the first time at Monday's White House briefing.
DONALD TRUMP: This is Scott Atlas — do you know that, right? — Scott is a very famous man who's also very highly respected, Stanford. And he's working with us, and will be working with us on the coronavirus and he has many great ideas, and he thinks what we've done is really good and now we'll take it to a new level and so it's great to have Scott working along with us and we appreciate it very much, Scott, thank you very much.
KEILAR: CNN's Kaitlan Collins is joining us now and, Kaitlan, Atlas is joining Trump's team at a time when the President finds himself increasingly at odds with medical experts in his own administration. Tell us more about this.
KAITLAN COLLINS: Yes. He's just now formally joining, but he's actually been informally advising the President for weeks, after he first caught a glimpse of him on Fox News, where he's appeared pretty regularly since the month of May and you heard the President there listing off his credentials. He's a doctor of course, he's a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, but, Brianna, what might be the most important to the president is that he is one of the medical experts who has a very close public stance with what the president thinks about COVID-19 on reopening schools, national lockdowns, college athletes playing football this fall and just to give you an indication of what the president has been watching before he officially brought him on, here's a taste of what he said on outlets like Fox News.
DR. SCOTT ATLAS [on FNC’s America’s Newsroom, 07/15/20]: It doesn't matter if children get the disease. They don't get sick from this and the — the data shows that they do not significantly transmit to adults.
[SCREEN WIPE]
SANDRA SMITH [on FNC’s America’s Newsroom, 07/15/20]: The President says politics are at play for keeping kids home and — and other harsh restrictions that we’re seeing across the country. Do you believe that?
ATLAS [on FNC’s America’s Newsroom, 07/15/20]: I believe that there is zero reason, in fact, zero excuse to not have the schools open in person.
COLLINS: So, you see what he is saying about reopening schools and what experts who already work at the white house and already on the task force, people like Dr. Birx, Dr. Fauci, Steven Hahn of the FDA, other officials have said. They've been much more cautious when talking about reopening schools and you can see he is said we need forge ahead, things like that. He's actually going to be at the President's event on reopening schools today. But Brianna, it’s precisely thinking like that that has some health experts here at the White House concerned because basically they see it as the President bringing in someone who does echo his worldview, who will push back on him as much as other officials that we’ve seen do. Dr. Fauci, obviously, pretty publicly, but even lately, people like Dr. Burks as well, but some Trump allies say that’s the point of bringing on Dr. Atlas. Rush Limbaugh said he is meant to counter Dr. Fauci.
KEILAR: Mmm. Kaitlan, thank you so much for that report.
—
CNN Tonight
August 12, 2020
11:06 p.m. EasternDON LEMON: Dr. Reiner, in the middle of the worst public health crisis in the middle of a century, Trump is turning to a Fox News guest for medical advice instead of Dr. Fauci. This is just a sample of what this new advisor says and why the president may have chosen him. Here it is
DR. SCOTT ATLAS [on FNC’s America’s Newsroom, 07/15/20]: It doesn't matter if children get the disease. They don't get sick from this and the — the data shows that they do not significantly transmit to adults.
[SCREEN WIPE]
SANDRA SMITH [on FNC’s America’s Newsroom, 07/15/20]: The President says politics are at play for keeping kids home and — and other harsh restrictions that we’re seeing across the country. Do you believe that?
ATLAS [on FNC’s America’s Newsroom, 07/15/20]: I believe that there is zero reason, in fact, zero excuse to not have the schools open in person.
LEMON: Ah, it's an echo chamber. How dangerous is this echo chamber?
JONATHAN REINER: Oh, I mean, it’s — it's killing tens of thousands of Americans. Yeah, so the President won't have Doctors Fauci or Birx come to the podium because they are now prone to tell the truth and the truth is unpleasant for the President. The truth refutes his narrative, so the President brings Dr. Atlas, somebody who understands that it's easy to convince somebody if you tell them exactly what they already believe, so he's — that's his role at the White House, to tell the President what the President already believes. You know, I listen to a fabulous pod cast this weekend with Chuck Rosenberg when he interviewed Captain Sully Sullenberg and what Captin — what Captain Sullenberger [sic] said was that in a cockpit and in any kind of place like an operating room or boardroom or oval office, one of the most critical things is to have people who are willing to tell you what you don't want to hear and the absence of that has caused planes to crash and the absence of that now is killing tens of thousands of people in this country. No one will stand up and tell this President that he’s wrong. Has anyone told the President that the pandemic didn't start in 1917? Because he says that every day. My guess is that no one is wing to tell him what he keeps saying is nonsense. That's just a minor thing, so he now brings in a physician to tell him what he wants to hear. The only way we’re going to really move beyond this is with new leadership.
