Tuesday on CNN’s “New Day,” New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman weighed in on the notion President Donald Trump may have a personal connection to anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 because he has been pushing people to use it.
Haberman said Trump has been listening more to Oracle’s Larry Ellison and “TV doctors” like Dr. Mehmet Oz of “The Dr. Oz Show” than his own administration. She added she believes the president’s “main focus” is a “quick fix” out of coronavirus pandemic rather than a personal connection to the makers of the drug.
“[W]e have some reporting suggesting that there is a stockholding connected to the president that has an investment in a maker of this drug,” Haberman told CNN. “It’s certainly important to note given everything we’re seeing, given his excitement about it. I do think, John, just based on other reporting we have, that his interest in this is primarily about the fact that it has been suggested to him by people who he knows, including Larry Ellison at Oracle, Dr. Oz on television suggested this, and the president has gotten more interested in what TV doctors have to say than some of the people in his own administration. But mostly, John, I think he’s looking for a quick fix out of this. And I really do believe that that is his main focus. I have no way of knowing if that’s the only one. But I do think that’s the main one.”
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