Birx on COVID-19 deniers inside White House: ‘There were people who definitely believed that this was a hoax’

Former White House coronavirus response coordinator Deborah Birx said in an interview that aired Sunday that there were “definitely” people within the White House who believed the virus to be a hoax.

“There were people who definitely believed that this was a hoax,” Birx told CBS’s Margaret Brennan.

Asked how such conspiracy theories emerged within the White House, Birx responded, “I think because the information was confusing in the beginning. I think because we didn’t talk about the spectrum of disease, because everyone interpreted on what they knew, and so they saw people get COVID and be fine. And then they had us talking about how severe the disease is and how it could cause these unbelievable fatalities of our American public.”

COVID Deniers inside the White House? “There were people who definitely believed that this was a hoax,” former Trump Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx admits to @margbrennan.

Birx says she took her messaging on the road to avoid being “censored” pic.twitter.com/B30c44MuNM

— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) January 24, 2021

Birx suggested that she partially blamed former President Trump’s own language, including describing the virus as a “hoax” himself before it was declared a pandemic.

“When you have a pandemic where you’re relying on every American to change their behavior, communication is absolutely key,” she said. “And so every time a statement was made by a political leader that wasn’t consistent with public health needs, that derailed our response. It is also why I went on the road, because I wasn’t censored on the road.”

Birx, who retired after President Biden took office, said in the same interview that she “always” considered resigning from the White House coronavirus task force.