Tony's Diary Package — page 93

iship between Deb Birx and me. • Navarro, on the other hand, is convinced based on his reading that the drug works against the coronavirus and speaks about it enthusiastically. • Some of Trump's favorite TV hosts, including Fox's Sean Hannity, and friends including Rudy Giuliani, have also been touting the malaria drug for the coronavirus. Trump has made no secret who he sides with. • "What do you have to lose? Take it," the president said in a White House briefing on Saturday. "I really think they should take it. But it's their choice. And it's their doctor's choice or the doctors in the hospital. But hydroxychloroquine. Try it, if you'd like." POTUS continues to ramble at presser. Prior to the presser, POTUS invited me and Deb into his inner office at the OVAL and started telling me that as a Catholic how much of a shame it would be if we did not do a classical Easter and Good Friday and Palm Sunday. He wanted to figure out how to do a version of it like outdoor mass or stay in car and do drive in theater-like mass. Hope Hicks and I convinced him to essentially put Easter on hold for this year. Then he went on and on (almost pleading) with Me (mostly) and Deb saying that he cannot keep the country closed beyond the 30-day extension. He rambled on and on that we are destroying this great country and started rattling off the names of various sports commissioners (NBA, MLB, NHL, etc.) who said that their sports would be destroyed if we did not open up. Also, he said industry (all the industrial giants) would be forever destroyed. He said that he understood where Deb and I were coming from, but he could not let the country die and so one way or another, he is opening up in 30 days. He went on and emphasized this over and over at the press conference, which immediately followed his conversation with me and Deb. PRESS: White House Press Conference - 1hr 25 minutes. I had the opportunity to push mitigation sayin that it was our ony weapon right now and I praised the HCWs saying they were true heroes. April 5, 2020 - (Sunday) - Major news-outlets (Wash Post, NY Times) starting to write detailed stories of how the USG (esp. Trump) dropped the ball in response to COVID-19. CDC getting bashed (in some respects rightly so). Much Monday morning quarterbacking. Thus far, I am coming out OK, but the response in general in being bashed. Global - 1,100,000/57000; USA - 311000/7700; Cases predicted to continue to rise and deaths increase over next week. Nice article in Washington Post on the relationship between Deb Birx and me. Beautiful profile of me on BBC audio featuring Chris and Peter Staley. I was sitting on steps of EEOB on a conference call reviewing countermeasure portfolio (BARDA) when a photographer from across the landscape (on Pebble