It’s almost too perfect that President Trump has now hinted at a pardon for Roger Stone far more explicitly than he ever has before — barely 12 hours after raging at Jim Mattis for accusing him of making “a mockery” of our founding ideals and the Constitution.
Because in so doing, Trump confirmed that Mattis is 100 percent correct.
This isn’t just to say Trump’s intimation of a pardon for his criminal crony itself confirmed Mattis to be right. It’s how Trump did this that’s so remarkable, when juxtaposed with the blistering new criticisms from Mattis, who resigned as defense secretary in 2018.
With no apparent self-awareness or shame of any kind, Trump erupted on Twitter with the words “LAW AND ORDER!” literally minutes after tweeting out his message to Stone:
No. Roger was a victim of a corrupt and illegal Witch Hunt, one which will go down as the greatest political crime in history. He can sleep well at night! https://t.co/HHg24tcZrx
As Greg points out this illustrates in living color the fact that “Law and Order” has nothing to do with the rule of law. It is a betrayal of that. And he juxtaposes Trump’s fatuous mewling with the word of James Mattis:
Mattis pointed out that the vast majority of protesters are simply demanding that we “live up to our values as people and our values as a nation,” which include “equal justice before the law.”
Trump doesn’t know the meaning of that, and sees himself and his cronies as the true victims of unequal justice despite the fact that they are all crooks and traitors.
Just think, she had a chance to vote to remove this man just four months ago.
I welcome all people i the fight against this menace and better late than never. But imagine how much better they would all look today if they had done what they knew was right before.
They all showed their true colors and the only one who comes out looking like he has even a shred of integrity is Mitt Romney.
A version of gaslighting designed to sow seeds of doubt in the media on their definition of the chemical agents used to disrupt protesters.
“Trump Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany used teargaslighting on CNN’s Jim Acosta when he asked about how Trump cleared out the peaceful protesters outside St. John’s Church for his photo op.”
Here’s the clip of McEnany teargaslighting.
Keep watching past the 30 second mark. I know what she was doing with her “teargaslighitng’ but I wondered, if it’s not her specific definition of tear gas, what was it? What I found was educational and disturbing.
The cops, military and the bureau of prison’s riot squads probably used something from a company called PepperBall. I watched their training videos and then combined them in this editorial video of what happened outside St. John’s Church.
On their website the company showed scenarios of the product use in housing projects, hospitals and prisons. Note the use of drones to disperse chemical agents. Is that next?
This product can cause real problems, especially with people who have compromised respiratory systems, here’s the product safety sheet.
INHALATION: If breathing is difficult, administer oxygen. Symptoms may include: coughing, sneezing, burning eyes and skin, nausea and possibly vomiting. If high concentrations are inhaled, immediately remove subject to fresh air. Keep person calm. If not breathing, begin artificial respiration. If breathing difficulty persists, seek medical attention.
(I don’t know for SURE PepperBall products were used. Many other brands of chemical irritants and incapacitant projectiles are in use. I’m sure the full investigation of the incident by the Biden administration will reveal details.
New reporting from USA Today includes photos of one of the products used. They also reported how the White House attacked outlets for using the term tear gas in their reporting. )
To sum up: The police fired chemical irritant projectiles that cause difficulty breathing at people protesting the death George Floyd, who died when police knelt on his neck and back until he stopped breathing.
Instead of addressing what happened and why, the Trump Press Secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, decided to challenge the press on what they called the chemical agent that irritated lungs. Or, to coin a term, teargaslighting.
Masha Gessen’s latest in the New Yorker makes a point I’ve seen very few people successfully make. And it’s important:
Donald Trump thinks power looks like masked men in combat uniforms lined up in front of the marble columns of the Lincoln Memorial. He thinks it looks like Black Hawk helicopters hovering so low over protesters that they chop off the tops of trees. He thinks it looks like troops using tear gas to clear a plaza for a photo op. He thinks it looks like him hoisting a Bible in his raised right hand.
Trump thinks power sounds like this: “Our country always wins. That is why I am taking immediate Presidential action to stop the violence and restore security and safety in America . . . dominate the streets . . . establish an overwhelming law-enforcement presence. . . . If a city or state refuses . . . I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them. . . . We are putting everybody on warning. . . . One law and order and that is what it is. One law—we have one beautiful law.” To Trump, power sounds like the word “dominate,” repeated over and over on a leaked call with governors. It sounds like the silence of the men in uniform when they are asked who they are.
Trump got these ideas from television and Hollywood movies, and he had the intuition to recognize them. He knew what he wanted to imitate. We know that he likes the military and its parades. (A senior Administration official, speaking with the Daily Beast, attempted to downplay the President’s interest in tanks: “I think that is just one of the military words he knows.”) Perhaps he has seen many movies that feature the Black Hawk, that monster of military-industrial production, the metal embodiment of brute force. Perhaps Trump heard that, when Russia occupied Crimea, it flooded the peninsula with men in unmarked uniforms—they dominated without ever identifying themselves. Perhaps he heard the word “dominate” in his recent telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin. Perhaps he had seen a picture of Hitler in a similar pose, or perhaps he just conflated two gestures that symbolize power in American politics: one hand raised, the other on the Bible—this may explain the slight uncertainty of his display, as if he weren’t sure how much the book was supposed to weigh.
The President is a talented performer who plays an exaggerated version of an idea of who he is. On “The Apprentice,” he played what he thought a wildly successful real-estate developer would be like. He made inane pronouncements with great aplomb, and, as my colleague Patrick Radden Keefe wrote, in a Profile of the creator of “The Apprentice,” Mark Burnett, Trump made bizarre decisions that the makers of the show then scrambled to make look credible in the editing room. When the show started, Trump was a has-been, an occasional butt of tabloid jokes; by the time it ended, he and the audience both believed that he was one of the wealthiest and most successful businessmen on the planet. That, in turn, made his Presidential campaign if not immediately plausible then at least imaginable.
A power grab is always a performance of sorts. It begins with a claim to power, and if the claim is accepted—if the performance is believed—it takes hold. Much as he played a real-estate tycoon in the most crude and reductive way, Trump is now performing his idea of power as he imagines it. In his intuition, power is autocratic; it affirms the superiority of one nation and one race; it asserts total domination; and it mercilessly suppresses all opposition. Whether or not he is capable of grasping the concept, Trump is performing fascism.
As we’ve seen, Trump doesn’t actually know how to be a real president. He didn’t know how to be a real businessman. And he doesn’t know how to be a real fascist. He’s incapable of understanding any of those things and doesn’t really care about the sbstance except to the extent he has enough money and fame to massage his enormous ego.
He’s a performer, a celebrity, that’s it. And as Gessen points out he’s modeled his persona on characters he saw in the movies when he was younger. It’s the best he can do. He has no skill at anything else. We might as well have elected one of the Real Housewives to be president. In fact, any of them would do a better job —- none have Trump’s extremely debilitating personality disorder.
The question is whether or not “performing fascism” is really any different than fascism. After all, Trump has henchmen like Bill Barr and Tom Cotton ready to implement a real fascist plan. A whole lot of cops are too. And the GOP invertebrates who call themselves officials will obviously do anything he wants them to. (It does appear that the military, at least, is hitting the brakes for the moment and that’s important.)
But when you have a president acting like a fascist, a president whose unmoveable 42% of the country remains solidly behind him, it’s pretty obvious that there is a very large number of our fellow Americans who like fascism very much.
Task and Purpose gathered together recent comments by high level retired and active-duty military. I do not think this is coincidental. They are saying that the military is not prepared to wage war on American citizens on behalf of Trump’s re-election. And they aren’t being particularly subtle about it:
Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society.
This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.
It sickened me yesterday to see security personnel—including members of the National Guard—forcibly and violently clear a path through Lafayette Square to accommodate the president’s visit outside St. John’s Church. I have to date been reticent to speak out on issues surrounding President Trump’s leadership, but we are at an inflection point, and the events of the past few weeks have made it impossible to remain silent.
Whatever Trump’s goal in conducting his visit, he laid bare his disdain for the rights of peaceful protest in this country, gave succor to the leaders of other countries who take comfort in our domestic strife, and risked further politicizing the men and women of our armed forces.
Our active duty military must remain above the fray of domestic politics, and the best way to do that is to keep that force focused on its rightful mission outside the United States. Our senior active duty military leaders must make that case forcefully and directly to national leadership, speaking truth to power in uncomfortable ways. They must do this at the risk of their career. I hope they will do so, and not allow the military to be dragged into the maelstrom that is ahead of us, and which will likely only accelerate between now and November. If they do not stand and deliver on this vital core value, I fear for the soul of our military and all of the attendant consequences. We cannot afford to have a future Lafayette Square end up looking like Tiananmen Square.
America’s military, our sons and daughters, will place themselves at risk to protect their fellow citizens. Their job is unimaginably hard overseas; harder at home. Respect them, for they respect you. America is not a battleground. Our fellow citizens are not the enemy.
The “battle space” of America??? Not what America needs to hear…ever, unless we are invaded by an adversary or experience a constitutional failure…ie a Civil War…
The slide of the United States into illiberalism may well have begun on June 1, 2020. Remember the date. It may well signal the beginning of the end of the American experiment.
Within the administration, other generals and military leaders have spoken out both against racism and policy brutality and to reaffirm their commitment to upholding the constitutional rights of citizens regardless of their orders.
Every Soldier and Department of the Army Civilian swears an oath to support and defend the Constitution. That includes the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. We will continue to support and defend those rights, and we will continue to protect Americans, whether from enemies of the United States overseas, from COVID-19 at home, or from violence in our communities that threatens to drown out the voices begging us to listen. To Army leaders of all ranks, listen to your people, but don’t wait for them to come to you. Go to them. Ask the uncomfortable questions. Lead with compassion and humility, and create an environment in which people feel comfortable expressing grievances. Let us be the first to set the example. We are listening. And we will continue to put people first as long as we are leading the Army. Because people are our greatest strength
First right now, I think we need to listen. We have black Americans in our Navy and in our communities that are in deep pain right now. They are hurting. I’ve received emails, and I know it’s not a good situation. I know that for many of them, they may not have somebody to talk to. I ask you to consider reaching out, have a cup of coffee, have lunch, and just listen.
The second thing I would ask you to consider in the Navy we talk a lot about treating people with dignity and respect – in fact, we demand it. It’s one of the things that makes us a great Navy and one of the things that makes me so proud of all of you every single day. But over the past week, after we’ve watched what is going on, we can’t be under any illusions about the fact that racism is alive and well in our country. And I can’t be under any illusions that we don’t have it in our Navy.
Every American should be outraged that the conduct exhibited by police in Minneapolis can still happen in 2020. We all wish it were not possible for racism to occur in America … but it does, and we are at a moment where we must confront what is.”
[W]hat happens on America’s streets is also resident in our Air Force … Sometimes it’s explicit, sometimes it’s subtle, but we are not immune to the spectrum of racial prejudice, systemic discrimination, and unconscious bias. We see this in the apparent inequity in our application of military justice.
We will not shy away from this … As leaders and as Airmen, we will own our part and confront it head on.
I am sickened by the death of George Floyd. I am horrified his six year old daughter will grow up without a father. And I am enraged that this story—of George Floyd, of Philando Castile, of Trayvon Martin, and too many others—keeps happening in our country, where unarmed men and women of color are the victims of police brutality and extrajudicial violence.
…
Everyone who wears the uniform of our country takes an oath to uphold the Constitution and everything for which it stands. If we are to fulfill our obligation as service members, as Americans, and as decent human beings, we have to take our oath seriously. We cannot tolerate racism, discrimination, or casual violence. We cannot abide divisiveness and hate. We cannot stand by and watch. We ask for the intercession of what Abraham Lincoln called ‘the better angels of our nature.’ Join me.
With great sympathy, I want to extend the deepest of condolences to the family and friends of George Floyd from me and the department. Racism is real in America and we must all do our very best to recognize it, to confront it, and to eradicate it. … I say this not only as secretary of defense but also as a former soldier and a former member of the National Guard: The option to use active-duty forces in a law enforcement role should only be used as a matter of last resort – and only in the most urgent and dire of situations. We are not in one of those situations now. I do not support invoking the Insurrection Act.
Milley made a huge mistake by agreeing to put on his battle fatigues the other night for Trump’s photo-op. But his statement reminding the military of their oath to the constitution was welcome nonetheless. It’s sad that it’s necessary but it is.
The military are often used as political props for the Commander in Chief (George W. Bush used them constantly) but no one has ever actually called them “my generals” before or attempted to deploy them domestically to prop up their political standing in the run-up to an election.
There’s nothing good about ginning up a war for political purposes and god knows, we’ve seen it plenty of times before. But ginning up a civil war to directly attack Americans and its democratic ideals is a step beyond. Apparently, the military is finally pushing back.
I hope nobody thinks she cares about this. She does not. And she and her accomplices have trained their viewers and listeners to be as shameless as they are.
Still, it’s good to see this document for historical purposes. If we survive this era as a country this will be perfect evidence of the total collapse of the conservative movement. They aren’t even trying to hide it.
He’s so worried about losing the election that he’s even dyed his hair blond to look more like Trump.
“To General Mattis, I think you’re missing something here, my friend. You’re missing the fact that the liberal media has taken every event in the last three-and-a-half years and laid it at the president’s feet.”
“I’m not saying he’s blameless, but I am saying that you’re buying into a narrative that I think is, quite frankly, unfair.”
“You don’t quite understand that from the time President Trump wakes up until he goes to bed, there’s an effort to destroy his presidency. … It is so fashionable to blame President Trump for every wrong in America,” Graham said earlier in the interview.
Good boy, Lindsey. I hope Trump gives you a nice big bone to chew on as a reward. Nothing makes your master happier.
Wide shot shows line of Chinese tanks faced down by “Tank man” (lower left) on June 5, 1989, one day after Tiananmen Square Massacre .
Donald J. Trump has always been a failure … propped up for decades by Daddy’s money and the lawyers it could buy. He is self-centered, needy, insecure, petty, bigoted, cruel, dishonest, remorseless, and vengeful. Oh, and a coward.
And he’s just what 30% of Americans wanted in a president.
Insecurity is especially terrible when backed with the power to show who’s boss. The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks did not bring the U.S. to its knees, nor were they intended to. But the attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. that year shook American confidence so thoroughly that they brought out a thirst for vengeance that overtook our ethics. We acceded to our leaders working “the dark side,” as Vice President Dick Cheney put it days later.
What followed were a string of atrocities that, I maintain, mean former “history’s actors” among the George W. Bush inner circle can no longer travel abroad. Extraordinary rendition, “enhanced interrogation,” CIA black sites, prisoners beaten to death at the “Salt Pit,” and prisoner abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib mean international travel could, in theory, end in The Hague.
Insecurity alloyed with vengeance can lead to very dark places. And here we are, on the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre with military troops and equipment deployed to the streets of our own capitol city. They were ordered there by a president so insecure(How insecure is he?) that he felt the need to brag about his penis size during a presidential debate.
And the Trump campaign just changed his MAGA hats to camo and is now referring to supporters as the "Trump Army." Totally not concerning at all. pic.twitter.com/7a0ySLOAcS
Trump is so insecure that he was mortified by reports he’d been hustled to an underground bunker when civil rights protesters gathered too close to the White House last Friday. So, days later Trump threatened to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act to quell peaceful protests (punctuated here and there by vandalism and looting). Attorney General William Barr ordered protesters across from the White House dispersed with tear gas, flash bangs, and rubber bullets so Trump could walk outside for a glamour shot in front of a historic church posing with a Bible.
Trump is so insecure that he swears he was only in the bunker to inspect it. He’s so insecure that he’s deployed an alphabet soup of law enforcement agencies to Washington, D.C. to show citizens exercising their free speech rights that Donald J. Trump is not to be trifled with.
Law enforcement deployed in/to DC we’ve seen/reported:
US Secret Service US Park Police Arlington PD (gone) DC Nat’l Guard + other states Bureau of Prisons FBI DEA DHS ICE CBP TSA US Marshals Pentagon Force Protection Ft Bragg/Fort Drum active duty troops MPD
Trump (or someone in his orbit) ordered military helicopters to fly low over the city to scatter protesters with rotor downwash the way commanders might disperse insurgents in Falluja. The Daily Beast reports Trump in one conversation inquired about bringing in tanks to “dominate” the streets. Perhaps he recalls how the Chinese government reacted to protesters in 1989.
“When the students poured into Tiananmen Square, the Chinese government almost blew it,” Trump told Playboy Magazine months later. “Then they were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength.”
All of the militarized bluster from the White House has authentic military commanders speaking out against President “Strongly.”
“I cannot remain silent,” wrote Admiral Mike Mullen, respected former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, speaking out in The Atlantic on Tuesday. Referring to Trump’s actions as political stunts, Mullen wrote, “Our fellow citizens are not the enemy, and must never become so.”
James Mattis, former Trump secretary of defense and retired Marine general, spoke out in The Atlantic on Wednesday. Since his resignation in December 2018, Mattis has remained politicly silent about his experiences in the Trump administration. Until now:
I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled. The words “Equal Justice Under Law” are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation.
When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.
Protesters from coast to coast are calling for police reform and an end to centuries of systemic discrimination against people of color. Former high-ranking military officers are calling out the acting commander-in-chief.
Wednesday afternoon, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced charges against the remaining three officers complicit in the killing of George Floyd that prompted worldwide protests. Ellison also upgraded the charge against former officer Derek Chauvin to second-degree murder. Celebrations broke out but may not quell the calls for reforms long overdue.
In Washington, D.C., Trump’s troopers are arrayed against these people:
Trump’s presidential authorities and insecurity combined with both his and Barr’s authoritarian reflexes pose a clear and present danger to this democratic republic. Let’s hope it is still here to defend at the polls on November 3. They’ve already telegraphed how they might respond to losing.
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I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled. The words “Equal Justice Under Law” are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation.
When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.
We must reject any thinking of our cities as a “battlespace” that our uniformed military is called upon to “dominate.” At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict—a false conflict—between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part. Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them.
James Madison wrote in Federalist 14 that “America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred thousand veterans ready for combat.” We do not need to militarize our response to protests. We need to unite around a common purpose. And it starts by guaranteeing that all of us are equal before the law.
Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that “The Nazi slogan for destroying us…was ‘Divide and Conquer.’ Our American answer is ‘In Union there is Strength.’” We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis—confident that we are better than our politics.
Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.
We can come through this trying time stronger, and with a renewed sense of purpose and respect for one another. The pandemic has shown us that it is not only our troops who are willing to offer the ultimate sacrifice for the safety of the community. Americans in hospitals, grocery stores, post offices, and elsewhere have put their lives on the line in order to serve their fellow citizens and their country. We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority that we witnessed in Lafayette Square. We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution. At the same time, we must remember Lincoln’s “better angels,” and listen to them, as we work to unite.
Only by adopting a new path—which means, in truth, returning to the original path of our founding ideals—will we again be a country admired and respected at home and abroad.
I am impressed with the way Mattis weaves the two crises of the pandemic and unequal justice together in that statement. With the exception of a few Trumpie yahoos, the country really has united in both crises. If Trump had any real political instincts or the slightest ability to lead he could have stood at before the country and helped in that effort, probably reaping political rewards. But he doesn’t. And we knew that.
Maybe Mattis’s statement will stiffen the spines of the military leadership, I don’t know. But it’s on the record now and that is good.
At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, the White House task force that President Donald Trump assembled to manage the health crisis met every day. But in recent weeks, as the virus continues to spread and health experts warn of a potential surge in cases across the country this summer, the group has met formally just three times.
And in a new sign that the task force’s work may be nearing an end, its members have begun drafting a final after-action report highlighting the president’s response that’s expected to be completed in the coming weeks, according to two senior administration officials.
At the same time, the White House’s effort to reshape the task force to more closely align with Trump’s optimism about possible vaccines and treatments for the virus has been rocky. Just days after the White House announced Dr. Peter Marks as a new member the task force, Marks quietly left because of concerns that his participation could present a conflict of interest with his current job at the Food and Drug Administration, according to a person familiar with the move.
Marks, whom Trump has described as “highly accomplished,” left the group three weeks ago, but remains in the administration as director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. Marks also distanced himself as a member of Trump’s “dream team” working on his administration’s fast-track vaccine, called Operation Warp Speed, because of his concerns it might conflict with his role in vaccine oversight at FDA.
“Operation Warp Speed is a critical endeavor that I have been grateful to help stand up over the past few months, and there is now an exceptional team of vaccine development, manufacturing, and clinical trial experts in place advancing the program,” Dr. Marks said in a statement.
“With knowledge that some of our population is skeptical of vaccine development efforts, I believe that the American public is best served by my return full time to the FDA,” he continued. “In my role as a regulator there, I will continue to work advancing the development and availability of vaccines against COVID-19 that people can trust as being safe and effective.”
The task force report being drafted is expected to be far more of a highlights reel from the perspective of the president, who has chafed at criticism of his handling of the pandemic, officials said. It is unlikely to be a critical retrospective of what may have gone wrong and lessons learned that could be applied in a future pandemic, they said.
The dubious standing of the White House’s coronavirus task force comes as some health officials have watched with alarm as thousands of people crowd into streets and public spaces to protest the death of George Floyd, a black man from Minneapolis who died at the hands of a white police officer just over a week ago.
Over the past week, even as American deaths exceeded 100,000 from the respiratory illness, no health experts have appeared from the White House to offer advice or guidance on what these large protests may mean for health risks.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it was “monitoring closely” the huge gatherings that for the last three months were explicitly prevented by its own guidance, acknowledging that the “risk” of the coronavirus remains serious.
I remain hopeful that the mask wearing and outdoor gatherings of these mass protests will not result in s spike in cases and spread to vulnerable populations. But it’s so risky.
The malaria drug hydroxychloroquine did not prevent Covid-19 in a rigorous study of 821 people who had been exposed to patients infected with the virus, researchers from the University of Minnesota and Canada are reporting on Wednesday.
The study was the first large controlled clinical trial of hydroxychloroquine, a drug that President Trump has repeatedly promoted and recently taken himself. Conducted in the United States and Canada, this trial was also the first to test whether the drug could prevent illness in people who have been exposed to the coronavirus.
This type of study, in which patients are picked at random to receive either an experimental treatment or a placebo, is considered the most reliable way to measure the safety and effectiveness of a drug. The participants were health care workers and people who had been exposed at home to ill spouses, partners or parents.
“The take-home message for the general public is that if you’re exposed to someone with Covid-19, hydroxychloroquine is not an effective post-exposure preventive therapy,” the lead author of the study, Dr. David R. Boulware, from the University of Minnesota, said in an interview.
