Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Tuesday morning cast doubt on President Donald Trump’s claim to be taking hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria drug, to ward off COVID-19 infection.
“This president doesn’t tell the truth,” Schumer said during an interview on “Morning Joe.” “He may be taking this, he may not.”
The Democratic leader suggested that Trump may have had an ulterior motive when he told reporters on Monday about supposedly taking the drug, which has not been scientifically proven to prevent COVID-19.
“Maybe he has family or friends who own part of the company. It’s not unlike this president,” Schumer said. “Someone at Mar-A-Lago or someone on the phone tells him ‘oh this is a good company’ and he just talks about it.”
Schumer: Maybe Trump's "just lying" about taking hydroxychloroquine. pic.twitter.com/rShDqtZGbT
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) May 19, 2020
The New York senator had expressed similar skepticism of Trump’s claim the night before.
“Who knows if it’s true?” Schumer said during an interview with MSNBC anchor Steve Kornacki on Monday. “He may not have been taking it, for all we know.”
Schumer casts doubt on Trump's claim to be taking hydroxychloroquine: "Who knows if it's true?" pic.twitter.com/UzgFhhbGHl
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) May 19, 2020
Indeed, Trump physician Dr. Sean Conley’s memo to White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany on the drug doesn’t definitively state that the President is actually taking it, only that the two of them “concluded the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks.”
The other half of the memo merely notes that Conley will “continue to monitor the myriad studies investigating potential COVID-19 therapies,” and that he anticipates “employing the same shared medical decision making based on the evidence at hand in the future.”
Schumer slammed Trump’s comment as “reckless” on Tuesday given that not only have studies failed to prove that hydroxychloroquine cures COVID-19, Trump’s own Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has warned of reported “serious heart rhythm problems” associated with the drug.
Read Conley’s letter below:
