President Donald Trumpâs campaign advisers on Sunday faced tough questions from political talk show hosts about the presidentâs unsubstantiated claim that doctors are being paid to inflate the number of COVID-19 deaths.
Trump claimed without evidence at a campaign rally Friday that doctors were falsely reporting coronavirus-linked deaths for monetary gain.
âOur doctors get more money if somebody dies from COVID,â Trump told the crowd. âYou know that, right? I mean, our doctors are very smart people. So what they do is, they say, âIâm sorry, but everybody dies of COVID.ââ
âFox News Sundayâ host Chris Wallace confronted Trump campaign adviser Corey Lewandowski about the presidentâs conspiracy theory.
âWhat is the presidentâs evidence that doctors, many of whom are risking their lives treating these patients, are in fact lining their pockets by saying they are inflating the number of COVID deaths?â Wallace asked.
Lewandowski admitted that he hasnât seen âevidenceâ backing up Trumpâs claim, but suggested anyway that doctors are inflating the numbers.
âI think we are categorising, sometimes, individuals who may have COVID who arenât dying from that and claiming it as a COVID death, which is not accurate,â Lewandowski said.
Wallace pointed out that several studies suggested the number of people dying from COVID-19 was actually underreported. He also mentioned that the American Medical Association condemned Trumpâs claim, calling it âmalicious, outrageous and completely misguided.â
âDoes the president stand by his accusation that doctors are profiteering off this virus?â Wallace pressed Lewandowski.
âYou know, Chris, I havenât spoke to the president about this directly so I couldnât answer that. But I can tell you that ââ
Wallace interrupted: âYou understand itâs a pretty serious ... thing to say about the nationâs doctors who are on the front lines?â
Lewandowski said the Trump campaign has âenormous respectâ for doctors before praising the administrationâs handling of the coronavirus crisis.
Jason Miller, another Trump campaign adviser, defended Trumpâs smear against doctors in an interview Sunday with ABCâs âThis Week.â
âłWhy does the president repeatedly attack doctors ... working on the front lines, saying theyâre inflating COVID numbers?â host George Stephanopoulos asked.
Miller denied that Trump was âattackingâ anyone, arguing that the president was simply discussing Americansâ desire to âget back to life as normal.â
Stephanopoulos pushed back: âBut, Jason, we all just saw it. He was talking about doctors inflating COVID deaths for money.â
Miller said he wasnât going to âget into the billing aspectsâ and claimed there have been âall sorts of independent things pointing to that.â But Miller did not cite a single report backing up Trumpâs claim.
âThe fact of the matter is, people want to get their life back to normal,â Miller said.
In a subsequent interview on âThis Week,â Anita Dunn, an adviser to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Bidenâs campaign, bashed Miller for defending Trumpâs attack on doctors.
âIâm astonished that Jason Miller spent as much time as he did without ever saying that the doctors who are on front lines ... without ever defending them,â Dunn told Stephanopoulos. She added: âThese people have been risking their lives since the beginning of this crisis.â
âThey have been out there every day â many of them working double shifts,â she continued. âAnd I just want to say, for the record, that it tells you everything you need to know about the difference between the Trump campaign and the Biden campaign.â
The US continues to lead the world in reported COVID-19 cases and deaths, with more than 9 million infections and at least 230,000 deaths as of Sunday. The US reported just over 100,000 new infections on Friday, setting a record for the most coronavirus cases confirmed in a single 24-hour period.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie â who was hospitalised for COVID-19 last month days after helping prep Trump for a presidential debate â appeared baffled by the presidentâs smear against doctors.
âłI have no explanation for that,â Christie, a Republican and ABC News contributor, told Stephanopoulos on Sunday. âI donât understand it.â