New York (CNN Business)Vice
President Mike Pence's office reversed course on Thursday afternoon,
after declining for days to allow the nation's top health officials to
appear on CNN and discuss the coronavirus pandemic, in what was an
attempt to pressure the network into carrying the White House's lengthy
daily briefings in full.
After
this story was published, Pence's office allowed for the booking of
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield
for CNN's Thursday night coronavirus town hall. Dr. Anthony Fauci was
also booked for Friday on "New Day."
Previously,
Pence's office, which is responsible for booking the officials on
networks during the pandemic, said it would only allow experts such as
Fauci or Dr. Deborah Birx to appear on CNN if the network televised the
portion of the White House briefings that includes the vice president
and other coronavirus task force members.
CNN
often only broadcasts resident Donald Trump's question and answer
session, which sometimes includes the health care officials, live
on-air.
After Trump leaves the podium, CNN frequently cuts out of the White House briefing to discuss and fact-check
what the resident has said. A CNN executive said that the network
usually returns to such programming because of the extensive length of
the full briefing that includes Pence, which can run in excess of two
hours.
CNN did, however, air the vice president's portion of the briefing Wednesday night.
Regardless,
Pence's office for several days declined to make the nation's top
health care officials available to CNN for the last seven days.
"When
you guys cover the briefings with the health officials then you can
expect them back on your air," a Pence spokesperson told CNN Thursday
morning.
Fauci,
Birx, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn and Surgeon General Jerome Adams
have all appeared on NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox during the last week, despite
the fact that the broadcast networks have generally not covered the
briefings that have included the vice president and health officials.
But the Vice President's office had blocked all CNN appearances since last Thursday night.
Fauci appeared on the last five weekly CNN Town Halls, with Anderson Cooper and Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Until this story was published, Vice President's office has refused to make him, or anyone, available for Thursday's town hall.
The
White House has made two non health care officials available to CNN in
the last week. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper appeared on "State of the
Union" on Sunday and Peter Navarro appeared on Anderson Cooper's show
on Friday and "New Day" on Monday.
Trump
has declined CNN's repeated requests for an interview, instead
appearing only on Fox News for softball interviews multiple times during
the national emergency.
A CNN spokesperson declined to comment for this story.
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the number of CNN town halls in which Dr. Fauci has appeared.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Spammers, stay out. Only political and video game discussion here.