WASHINGTON, D.C. – Ousted vaccine specialist Rick Bright, Ph.D., is making more bombshell comments as he prepares to testify before Congress Thursday. Bright has already claimed he was retaliated against for recommending against the use of Hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug pushed by the President Trump.
"I was pressured to let politics and cronyism drive decisions over the opinions of the best scientists we have in government," Bright said when he filed his federal whistleblower complaint.
(Read Bright’s Written Testimony to Congress)
Now, a day before he testifies to congress, Bright's opening statements will warn of upcoming "unprecedented illness and fatalities," adding that "without clear planning and implementation of the steps that I and other experts have outlined, 2020 will be the darkest winter in modern history."
Trumps has said he does not know of Bright, one of the Trump Administration's top researchers.
When asked about Bright at a recent news conference, Trump said, “If the guy says he was pushed out of a job, maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. I don’t know who he is."
Model predicts jump in deaths
Meanwhile, as 45 states are easing restrictions to re-open, a new model used by the White House is now showing 147,000 COVID-19 deaths by August. That's 10,000 more than its previous projection.
"States have relaxed early, people have heard the message, they've gotten out, they've become more mobile," Dr. Chris Murray, the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, University of Washington. "They are having more contact and we're seeing effects already of that transition."
A new CNN poll showed that 58 percent of Americans say that they feel uneasy about returning to their regular routines while 41 percent said the opposite. Coronavirus doctor Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, continued to warn of the dangers of reopening too soon.
"The consequences could be serious. There is a real risk you will trigger and outbreak," Fauci told a Senate panel Tuesday.
From the safety of the White House where testing is available every day, Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, dismissed the warnings.
"There's risks to anything, but the president carries the burden of the 30 million Americans who have lost their jobs," Kushner said.
With only three percent of the country tested so far, the president has justified any risks by claiming victory on testing. "We have met the moment and we have prevailed," he said Monday.
Manafort goes home
Meanwhile, Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort, has been released to home confinement because of coronavirus fears, despite zero cases at the prison where he is serving time.
In March 2019, Manafort was sentenced to a total of 90 months — or 7.5 years — in two separate cases involving tax and bank fraud and related charges.
And, as the Department of Justice tries to dismiss the case against twice confessed felon Michael Flynn, former Watergate prosecutors are fighting against it with 16 of them sending legal memos to court urging the judge not to drop the case.
Pandemic proposal ‘DOA’
Also on Wednesday, as President Trump met with the governors of Colorado and North Dakota, he announced that when it comes to the House Democrats $3 trillion pandemic relief proposal that House Speak Nancy Pelosi unveiled on Tuesday, he said when it arrives to the White House it will be “DOA” (dead on arrival).