Tag: Peter Navarro

Navarro-Fauci battle intensifies, to detriment of Trump

The Hill logoWhite House trade adviser Peter Navarro’s battle with Anthony Fauciintensified on Wednesday, putting the White House in a difficult position as it struggles to downplay evidence of a rift between President Trump and one of the nation’s most trusted health experts. 

In an extraordinary move, Navarro wrote an op-ed in USA Today, the country’s largest newspaper, cataloging his disagreements with Fauci and questioning his credibility, saying the top U.S. infectious disease official’s advice should be taken with “skepticism and caution.”

The Trump White House has since its infancy been characterized by infighting, and Trump has welcomed disagreements among his aides. But Navarro’s effort to take his fight against Fauci public is unusual. Continue reading.

Navarro under fire over anti-Fauci op-ed

The White House trade adviser’s column represented his most brazen effort yet to dress down the widely respected immunologist.

President Donald Trump’s top trade adviser came under fire Wednesday for assailing Dr. Anthony Fauci in a new op-ed, with even the White House distancing itself from the diatribe after waging its own smear campaign against the nation’s top infectious disease expert over the weekend.

Alyssa Farah, White House director of strategic communications, insisted in a tweet Wednesday morning that the West Wing’s press shop had not approved the explosive column by Peter Navarro, director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, that appeared Tuesday evening on USA Today’s website.

“The Peter Navarro op-ed didn’t go through normal White House clearance processes and is the opinion of Peter alone,” Farah wrote online. “@realDonaldTrump values the expertise of the medical professionals advising his Administration.” Continue reading.

Touting criticized study, White House presses FDA to authorize hydroxychloroquine — again

Washington Post logoTrade adviser Peter Navarro leads the effort with support from Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s lawyer, and Laura Ingraham’s show on Fox News.

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro is leading a Trump administration effort to demand the Food and Drug Administration reverse course and grant a second emergency authorization for the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine to treat covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.

Navarro, armed with a new study that he says shows the drug’s effectiveness, is being cheered on by President Trump, who has long touted the drug as a “game changer” and even used it himself as a possible preventive measure. Trump praised the study on Twitter this week, urging the FDA to “Act Now.” The campaign also has been promoted by Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s lawyer, and Laura Ingraham’s show on Fox News.

But Navarro, an economist known more for his aggressive approach to trade issues and China policy than for his medical credentials, faces serious challenges as he denounces what he calls “media-induced hydroxy hysteria.” Scientists have widely criticized the new study, by Detroit’s Henry Ford Health System, as flawed. In addition, just weeks ago the FDA revoked its emergency authorization for hydroxychloroquine after major studies found the medication wasn’t effective for covid-19. And the unexpected revival of a politically fraught issue comes as FDA Commissioner Stephen M. Hahn tries to shake off criticism he sometimes seems overly deferential to Trump. Continue reading.

White House Trade Adviser Spins Wild China Conspiracy

Trump White House Trade advisor Peter Navarro used the long Independence Day weekend to spin a fantastical conspiracy theory that directly blames China for creating the deadly coronavirus, then sending “hundreds of thousands” of its people to the U.S. to infect and ultimately kill Americans.

“It is the Chinese Communist Party that is making us stay locked in our homes and lose our jobs,” Navarro, the author of the 2011 book, Death by China, told MSNBC’s Ali Velshi Friday afternoon.

“They spawned the virus. They hid the virus. They sent hundreds of thousands of Chinese nationals over here to seed and spread the virus before we knew,” he continued, refusing to respond to Velshi’s questions. Continue reading.

Trump Aide Navarro ‘Slam Dunked’ By 60 Minutes On Pandemic Preparedness

During a recent appearance on CBS’ 60 Minutes, Peter Navarro (one of President Donald Trump’s top economic advisers) aggressively defended the president’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and demanded to know when 60 Minutes addressed the last two presidential administrations’ preparedness for a pandemic. And a video shows that in fact, the CBS program did exactly that.

The video opens with Navarro asserting, “Show me the 60 Minutes episode — a year ago, two years ago — during the Obama administration, during the Bush administration, that said, ‘Hey, a global pandemic’s coming. You gotta do X, Y and Z’…. Show me that episode. Then, you’ll have some credence in terms of attacking the Trump administration for not being prepared.” And the video then segues into “60 Minutes” reports from 2005 (when George W. Bush was president) and 2009 (when Barack Obama was president).

In the 2009 segment, 60 Minutes can be seen warning about the threat of H1N1 and reporting, “H1N1 is a pandemic, meaning it’s a global epidemic. It’s the first flu pandemic in 41 years.” Continue reading.

Trump Says ‘Nobody’ Knew Pandemic Was Coming. His Adviser Warned Of It In January.

Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade adviser, reportedly penned two memos — in January and then February — warning of potential catastrophe because of COVID-19.

President Donald Trump said repeatedly in March that “nobody” could’ve predicted a crisis at the scale of the coronavirus pandemic wreaking havoc across the globe.

“Nobody knew there’d be a pandemic or an epidemic of this proportion,” Trump said March 19. A week later, he reiterated that “nobody would have ever thought a thing like this could have happened.”

But according to reports in The New York Times and Axios on Monday, at least one top official in Trump’s own administration sounded the alarm ― in late January and then again in February ― about the potentially catastrophic impacts of the virus that causes COVID-19 on the United States. Continue reading. Continue reading.

CNN host spars with Trump economist Navarro for touting ‘social scientist’ credentials in hydroxychloroquine fight: ‘Why should we listen to you?’

AlterNet logoAxios’ Jonathan Swan has reported that Dr. Anthony Fauci and Peter Navarro (policy coordinator for the Trump White House’s trade policy) had a heated argument in the White House’s Situation Room over the benefits of hydroxychloroquine as a way to possibly treat coronavirus. Navarro, like President Donald Trump, has been pushing chloroquine aggressively  — while Fauci has strong reservations. And the merits of hydroxychloroquine (which has been used to treat malaria) in relation to coronavirus were hotly debated on Monday morning, April 6 when Navarro appeared on CNN’s “New Day” and was aggressively grilled by host John Berman.

Berman emphasized that Navarro lacks Fauci’s medical expertise, asking why someone would believe Navarro over a well-respected “infectious disease doctor” like Fauci. When Navarro described himself as a “social scientist,” Berman responded that being a “social scientist” is not the same as having medical expertise.

“I’m sorry, that doesn’t qualify you to treat patients,” Berman said. “You know it doesn’t qualify to you treat patients.” Continue reading.

Trump names new Defense Production Act coordinator for coronavirus fight

The Hill logoPresident Trump said Friday that White House trade adviser Peter Navarro would become the national Defense Production Act policy coordinator for the federal government as the administration seeks to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump made the announcement at an afternoon press conference at the White House, saying he gave Navarro the new authorities when he signed an executive order earlier that day.

“My order establishes that Peter will serve as national Defense Production Act policy coordinator for the federal government,” Trump told reporters. Continue reading.

Wall Street Journal torches top Trump adviser for being the architect behind US economic chaos

AlterNet logoIn a blunt and uncharacteristically sarcastic broadside aimed at Donald Trump’s administration, an obviously furious editorial board of the conservative Wall Street Journal trashed adviser Peter Navarro for being the driving force behind policies that appear to be driving the entire world’s economy into recession.

With the market plummeting and the president trying to blame the Fed for the crashing economy, the editors of the Journal said the source of the economic chaos can be found in the White House.

“After we warned last week that U.S. trade policy was courting recession, White House aide Peter Navarro took to Fox Business to denounce us for sounding like The People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist propaganda arm,” the editorial began before snarling, “That was novel as criticisms of these columns go, but perhaps Mr. Navarro would care to comment again after Wednesday’s recession warning from the bond and equity markets? Are they Commies too?”

View the complete August 15 article by Tom Boggioni from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.