Instead of putting a medical professional in charge of the coronavirus response, President Donald Trump has turned to Vice President Mike Pence and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, neither of whom are doctors. And that lack of medical expertise showed itself by who Kushner has been consulting as part of his research.
It turns out that Kushner reached out to his brother’s father-in-law Kurt Kloss, a doctor and the father of model Karlie Kloss, seeking recommendations to fight the pandemic.
Kurt Kloss then sought recommendations from a Facebook group known as Bad Ass Fucking Emergency Room Doctors (BAFERD), whose members must show their credentials before being allowed to join.
“If you were in charge of Federal response to the Pandemic what would your recommendation be?” Kloss asked. “Please only serious responses. I have direct channel to person now in charge at White House.”
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“[Kushner] is now directly involved in the response to this,” Kloss said.
He received many responses from the large group of 22,000 doctors from around the world, and he relayed 12 of them to Kushner.
“Tonight I was asked by Jared through my son-in-law for my recommendations, that’s when I turned to you my fellow BAFERD’s for help,” Kloss wrote. “Between patients tonight I have reviewed your responses and will summarize what I am sending to Jared for your PEER review before I send it.”
One doctor apparently recommended that Pence not be in charge of the response. Though it’s unlikely Kloss included that recommendation, he did agree with it.
“The only thing that gave me any sense of confidence was that Dr. Anthony Faucci [sic] was on that stage,” Kloss responded.
Fauci is an infectious disease expert with the National Institutes of Health. He has been at the forefront of the pandemic warning the public to protect themselves and informing them about the outbreak as it spreads.
Now, at least Kushner sought recommendations from doctors, which is what Trump himself should have been doing from the start. The question is will Kushner actually pass these recommendations along and urge Trump to put them into action rather than continue doing nothing but downplaying the pandemic?
But Trump really did not need Kushner at all. Again, he has plenty of good doctors to turn to, including Fauci, who served in the same position during the Obama administration in 2014 when the Ebola epidemic broke out. Waiting for Kushner to “research” the epidemic is a waste of time and resources that could have been used to tackle the problem earlier. If Trump had acted appropriately when he had the chance, he would have been out in front of this emergency and could have prevented the damage it has caused.
Instead, he went to Jared.
Featured image via screen capture
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