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Fox News host Greg Gutfeld pulled a real-time ‘fact-check’ on fellow correspondent Juan Williams using a teed-up video on Tuesday during a discussion about President Donald Trump’s use of hydroxychloroquine prophylactically to ward off COVID-19.
Gutfeld, who is co-host of “The Five,” spent some time discussing the issue with fellow co-host Jesse Watters before turning to Williams, who also helps host the program.
“This is all risk, no benefits,” Williams said. “Why do I say that? Because guess what. That is exactly what the FDA said on April 24, which I got here. It said that they were worried about the side effects and there was no proven benefit from taking this drug. The Veterans Administration …”
“That was discredited,” Gutfeld broke in. “That’s been discredited. You bring up the VA, Juan. You bring up the VA. Let’s hear from the head of the VA. Exactly what you just said, let’s show that tape because it’s an important point that Juan brought up.”
In the video segment, Veterans Administration Secretary Robert Wilkie clearly noted that the referenced research “was not” a “peer-reviewed” departmental study and that the VA uses some 42,000 doses of hydroxychloroquine “on any given day.”
After playing the clip, Gutfeld tried going to fellow co-host Dana Perino, but Williams interjected.
“Hold on, hold on. I want to finish my points,” he said.
“You just got blown out of the water!” Gutfeld exclaimed.
Wilkie addressed the oft-misreported notion that the VA found the drug to be risky and even deadly earlier this week.
“I want to clear up something the media did not report accurately,” Wilkie said. “Those of us who have had a military life, some of us around this table, we’ve been taking this drug for years… The Department of Defense and VA have been using this drug for 65 years. On any given day the VA uses 42,000 doses of this drug.
“I want to knock down the phony story that this is somehow the VA going back on what the president told us to do, which is to use every opportunity possible to preserve the lives of our veterans,” he added.
For his part, Watters panned Democrats’ and the liberal media’s outrage over Trump’s use of hydroxychloroquine.
“I thought we weren’t supposed to get in the middle of the ‘doctor-patient relationship,’” Watters noted, referencing the fact that White House physician Dr. Sean Conley prescribed the medication after consulting with President Trump.
NEW: A memo from White House physician Dr. Sean Conley lays out the discussion that lead to Pres. Trump taking hydroxy-chloroquine: “We concluded the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks.” pic.twitter.com/f7qmKzKcxp
— Alex Salvi (@alexsalvinews) May 19, 2020
White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany noted, too, that Trump’s announcement was meant as an act of transparency — which Gutfeld, on an earlier program, observed is unprecedented for a U.S. politician.
“The President just wanted to be transparent about his personal health decision that he made in consultation with his doctor,” McEnany said regarding Trump’s decision to make the announcement. “And one of the things that I really want to get out there this morning that unfortunately there’s a lot of misinformation about is — first let me emphasize strongly that any use of Hydroxychloroquine has to be in consultation with your doctor, you have to have a prescription. That’s the way it must be done.
“We have a lot of information about the safety of this drug, though ultimately you make that decision with your doctor,” she continued. “So some of the misreporting on other networks, these apoplectic analyses of hydroxychloroquine ignore the fact that tens of millions of people around the world have used this drug for other purposes, including some people in my communications office who used it for malaria prophylaxis before traveling to other parts of the world.”
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Jon is a staff writer for BizPac Review with 30 years' worth of reporting experience, as well as an author and U.S. Army veteran. He has a BA in political science from Ashford University and an MA in national security studies/intelligence analysis from American Military University.
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