the entire committee. >> you never shared anything with the majority that have not been shared. >> this is a bipartisan commission. >> >> i didn't hear you. >> i am wondering if there is any information that may be deemed to be degrading that would be kept in confidence among committee members as opposed to be releasing to the public? >> i now have the pleasure to recognize the only pharmacist in our commission. >> thank you dr. bright for being here. before i begin, i want to extend

my condolences to those 80,000 members who lost letheir lives d a shout-out to healthcare workers who put their own health in danger in order to provide services to our citizens. dr. bright, my understanding in 2017 barta funded a project in albuquerque that can be used in the public health of emergency such as what we are going through today. none of these next generation respiratories were available to us today, do you have any idea? >> i have no idea. you are talking about the ventilators? >> yes, those that can be sanitized and reused. it was contracted and that

project was scrapped. >> i am not floor with that project. >> we had a lot of discussion with hydroxychloroquine. i am confused here because as my understanding that this is barta, barta and the role of barta and the mission of barta to look at things like this. when we in congress appropriate and allocate money to go towards this that you were supposed to be looking and barta is supposed to be looking at things that have merit such as chloroquine and hoydroxychloroquine.

earlier on you were in favor of that. because we did not have any vaccine, we should be testing and that's where we are appropriating that money from. did you agree with that? that's what we are trying to do to look at what possibly work and work with public companies to try to encourage them to come up with those kinds of solutions? >> absolutely. >> we should look at all options and make sure we evaluate the potential risk and safety and benefit of those and control and we should get that clinical data as urgently as possible. we should not proceed recklessly. >> you are referring we should not proceed adversely, you are referring to hydroxychloroquine and colhloroquine? >> we were promoting and standing up and randomized

control in nih with hydroxychloroquine. i worked with companies to ask if they'll donate drugs to the nih to be used in the context of a randomized control of a clinical study. >> right. >> i think you worked with the fda to get the use of hydroxychloroquine, was that correct? it was approved? >> that was the contact we received and the secretary office stand up and expanded the protocol. >> were you instructed to do that or you did it against your will? >> in the context of americans, access drugs and not be under the close supervision, scientists at barta and cdc were together to change that

directive, authorization with guard rails in there so patients would be under close supervision. >> understood. initially you appeared to be encouraged of what could possibly be a result of hydroxychloroquine. when did that change? when did you sour if you will on the use of hydroxychloroquine? >> i have seen many drugs that could have benefited and some of these are interesting things we have never heard of. >> when did you sour on it? >> when it was determined that this drug should be made for americans outside of a contact of a close supervision. i supported and conducted a randomize control control at the nih. when i learned that there is a directive to make it more broadly available and not under close supervision -- >> when did that directive go

out? >> that was march 23rd. >> that was the time you decided this is not what we should do and we should not look at hydroxychloroquine at all. >> i didn't think it was a safer way to evaluate that drug. i believe it should be done in the close supervision of a vision. when we lock this drug down, it should only be used in patients under close supervision, we were satisfied that we had guard rails in place. an e-mail followed a week later saying ignore the eua, push this drug into the retail pharmacies in new york and new jersey, that's when i became more concerned. >> who put that directive out? >> gentleman's time is expired. >> you can answer dr. bright. >> which directive? >> should it be put out to the public without physicians

approving it? >> that directive was an e-mail string that had a number of individuals. it came from the secretary of health indicated the the white house was asking for that drug. >> was it because the president was encouraged by the use of this drug that you became discouraged by? >> it had nothing to do with politics. i want to make sure americans are aware of this drug. >> it was a drug that indicated and has been used in the past. >> you can finish your answer dr. bright and we are going to move to the next member. >> it was used for malaria. >> gentleman, your time is over. please, please. i am overly generous of both sides of the isle. we need to move on. two-minutes of extra time is two-minutes of extra time. i am not going to ask that it would be shared over here.

pleasure to recognize the gentleman from michigan. >> thank you madame chair, dr. bri bright, thank you for being here today. i think we are here today because covid israe real. i want to look at the last few months. covid is really real in my state. michigan is the tenth largest state in the country. we were third in remaining there until this week in the number of deaths. we managed to move to fourth place two days ago which is not a number anybody wants to be. my family alone, my cousin woke

up with 104 temperatures and was dead that afternoon. there are people dying every single day. i have lost someone, sunday, monday, a brother and tuesday and wednesday. we hear the scientific expert yourself but dr. fauci, and other scientists around the country saying to us if we don't listen to them, we could begin to see a return. you call it a dark corner. i call it i don't want to see anymore spikes. i don't want the see anybody else dying. i am losing many friends that i know and people across the country are. i want to focus on an area that's not your area of expertise but it is mine. car safety, we expect our cars to be safe. we expect car manufactures to be responsible in making sure

defective cars are not sold. if they fail in that responsibility, we hold them accountable. if an engineer in a car company realized a model has a deif hfe we would all think she would have done her job responsively. if americans died driving those cars, the company would be sued and they would be charged with criminal negligence. several years ago before my time, this committee investigated air bag defects and vehicle safety. at the time the ranking member says there is no room for going slow when it comes to safety. certainly deception can't and will not be tolerated. dr. burgess was right there.

car makers have to be accountable. what i am concerned about is we are not applying the same standards to coronavirus. i want to learn from what happened so we keep that dark winter you are talking about from happening. it seems to me that dr. bright you acted the same way the autoengineaut auto engineer. you identified serious problem and suggested fixes when it came to diagnostics and n-95 masks and other equipment and medicines. >> we still have those challenges. >> do you believe if your suggestions were implemented, lives would have been saved and the severity of the pandemic may have beenlesse lessen? >> yes. >> people die because you were not listened to. >> people died because they did

not have protective equipment to save their lives and protect them getting infected. >> the problems are not limited to ignore your advice. the american people are confused and given mixed signals. let me give you an example, there was a visit to the cdc on march 6th, at that visit, the administration said anybody who wants a test will get a test. was that true then? >> still not enough test. >> even this week as we are being told, anybody who wants a test can have a test, this that true in the united states of america? >> no. >> all the experts say we are doing is a small fraction of the test we need to do to reopen safely. >> i am running out of time. let me ask you about vaccines. we keep on being told by the white house that we heard very soon, quick numbers in a matter of months for that vaccine to be

developed. this is your area of expertise. was there any scientific bases to suggest in march that we'll have a vaccine in the next few month months? >> there is a lot of optimism and hope but that does not make a vaccine. there is a lot of work to done to make a vaccine. >> will we be able to vaccinate people the next few months? >> very unlikely. >> gentlewoman yields back. the minority is asking and reserving. so, with pleasure i recognize the gentlewoman from new hampshi hampshi hampshire, ms. kcuster. i want to thank for your courage to help us do our jobs by protecting the american people. february 26th with secretary

azar right here, right at that table. the key to a public health crisis is trust and credibility. on that date, i urge secretary azar to provide clear, credible updates from this administration to the american public. over the past several months i have held countless conversations with doctors and nurses and our governors and every other person in new hampshire trying to get access to personal protective equipment to protect our front line workers and protect our grocery clerks. we have been trying to get testing supplies and we were told because we were not a hot spot, we were on our own. we literally had to turn to

entrepreneurs, thank god they exist and thank you to them for flying to china and bringing us the equipment we need that should and could have distributed had we planned ahead. these conversations have informed my road map to recovery on how to safely reopen our economy and key to those efforts is adequate testing and contact tracing and supported isolation and vaccine development. your specialty. i want to focus on your role as director of bar ta, on page 28 and 29 of your addendum of your complaint, barta estimated millions of needles and syringes for a vaccine to be needed for everyone to be safe. your team estimates it could take up to two years to

manufacture these vaccine delivery supplies. to your knowledge, dr. bright, at this time has the administration placed any orders to prepare for how a vaccine will be delivered when one becomes available to every american? >> the first order of needles and syringes on may 1st and another one today. >> were the amount adequate? >> 420 millions. >> could you describe the situation if every american do not have access to a vaccine due to a supply shortage? >> catastrophic. decisions have not been made yet and who to vaccinate first and how to identify those individuals and how to stretch those limits of supplies appropriately.

it is not just to the yiunited states. when i said it will take two or two and a half years, that's not limited to those supplies. >> does it make us vulnerable to future spikes to covid-19? >> absolutely. >> do we have supply to distribute vaccine for flew u a well as covid-19? >> it is going to be a challenge. >> we have hanot seen that yet. >> it was whining down when covid-19 was emerging. >> without adequate supply to vaccinate all americans of covid-19, does this slow down the goal of fully reopening our economy and getting back to the normal that every american wants? >> it certainly brings to caution and significant consideration that must be taken

into consideration before reopening. we need to make sure that not only guidelines are reopening are clear to each individual and each individual follow those guidelines otherwise, it puts us into a solid risk. >> i know you are not political and we are trying not to be political. i am proud in our state that our delegation and our governors are working working so well together. dr. bright, does this virus give a damn whether a patient is republican or democrat? >> no, it domestic abues not. this virus just wants to infect people and a lot of people get really sick and die. >> thank you for your work. i yield back. >> minority reserve. a pleasure to call the gentlewoman from illinois, miss

kelly for her five minutes of question. >> thank you so much for thank you for being here. i am deeply concerned of the disparity this pandemic brought to light leading to differences and health outcomes for people of color. time and time again where resources are scarce and some communities are forced without the goods and services they need. you identified most of the situation where the united states are faced with a shortage of supplies needed to respond to covid-19, and potentially supplies that deliver s a vaccie when it is ready. we see some states are significantly more because they are on their own to procure those medical supplies. not every state or locality can afford to do this. knowing we know how scarce resources are distributed, what impact will shortages have on

lower income communities? >> across all america and unfortunately it increasing the concerns and communities that are apart of the mainstream socially and economic status. it has a significant chance to increase the risk in those communities. >> how have you seen this impact of the devastation of thosecomm? >> the data hit very hard. we don't have the information that you have to understand what's behind that or why and why it held status or access to healthcare or other immunization or healthcare status. we are still learning a lot about that. however it is really important to think about when we have diagnostic tests and other things available that that are available to everyone. many tests we are developing are

expensive. >> are you aware of any hhs administration actions to target resources outreach to these vulnerable groups? >> i have had some conversations. there has been some conversations i should say and focusing on groups that are harder to reach in different socioeconomic status. >> will this help to ensure every community can access the equipment and supplies they need?

> >> that's what needed? will more supplies help address in the impact of covid-19 of color? >> absolutely. >> do you feel in the last bill that we passed that we made sure that there was passed in the bill better data as far as race and not just who died but who was hospitalized and so forth, how do you feel that'll help? >> i think that's very important and wise move. >> we are supposed to get a report 21 days from when the president signs the bill and 30 days and 180 days. >> i am not aware of those guidelines. >> lastly you have been sitting in that seat for a while, is there anything that we have not asked you that you want to say?

>> that's an important question and i thought a lot about that. the highlight of the things i talked about in my hoping statement is we need transparency and science and america needs to know the truth. this is a devastating pandemic and not just for health but society or economy or jobs and livelihood. if we do not take seriously call for action to put specific things in place, a coordinated national plan for testing and response, echo distribution of limit and supplies and ramp up and prepare for what would be a defr sta defr sta devastating fall if we don't have a right materials, this virus will overcome. we have the ability to do it and we have the greatest scientists

in place. everyone get busy to stop this virus. >> i lost my uncle ten days ago now from the virus. it does definitely touch everybody. thank you for your patience. >> thank you. >> the gentlewoman yields back. >> one striking aspect of your account is the contrast between the public update between the president and secretary azar verses the analysis you and other experts were providing behind the scenes. i would like to explore this disconnect and ultimately that the administration shared information that was misleading. we need to better understand

what happen and how to ensure the administration providing accurate information. you have learned covid-19 threat by early january, is that correct? >> yes. >> according to our complain it was clear to you that almost immediately that the virus was highly contagious, spreading rapidly and could have a high mortality rate, is that correct? >> yes, we were learning that outbreak in china. each day we are learning more information and it was more concerning. >> the world health organization confirmed your view that the virus was a big problem including hhs and over the course of january, you pressed hhs leadership about the urgent need to devote increase resourpresourp resources to address the outbreak. you briefed secretary azar it is

critically important to prepare for this virus. yet on january 24th in a tweet regarding the virus, the president quoted "it will all work out well." >> secretary azar said the virus is under control and the president echoed that comment the following day. this disconnect and the public statements by the administration leaders continued through february. let me give you more examples. early february, you continue to raise the alarm bell within hhs about the imminent mask shortages and the lack of prep pas that you saw coming, thank you for doing that. president trump stated it looks

like april the virus will go away. we only had 11 cases and they're all getting better. you have said experts knew the number of n-95 and respiratory masks needed to protect healthcare workers and other americans in the pandemic was close to 3.5 billion. yet, in testimonial on february 5th, secretary azar says the u.s. would only need 300 million. that's so much less than what you stated. throughout february, you continued to do warnings, i would say your hair was on fire of the danger of what millions will face. on february 25th, "we only have 15 people and 15 in a couple of days will go down to zero, that's a pretty good job you

have done." by march 10th, there were over a thousand diagnosed covid-19 cases in the united states. over 30 deaths had been attributed to the virus in this country. the president that day told the country, "it will go away, just stay calm, it will go away." he could not have been more wrong. today we have over 1.4 million cases. dr. bright, what impact do you believe statements by the administration leaders down playing the covid-19 crisis throughout february on thad on ability of our public health system to the covid-19 virus. >> i believe america needs to be told the truth. i believe the best scientific and guidance and advice was not conveyed to the american public during that time.

i believe by not telling america the truth or being totally transparent regardless of where the information was coming from, people were not as prepared as they could have been. we did not warn people and did not train people and we did not educate them on social distancing and wearing a mask in february. all of those could have had an impact of slowing the outbreak and savoring moing more looifiv. >> thank you dr. bright. i hope you are coming forward help our country in a better path than a disaster course of this administration to.

today. >> thank you madame chairwoman. you can hear from your colleagues, there is not a person in this room and country who have not personally touched by covid-19. your statement of we need to be told the truth is the most important statement we have heard all day because we know if we don't face it, we can't fix it. i want to thank you on behalf of all americans for your courage to testify before us today. i want to say my focus for this hearing is really on three things, number one, what have we learned? and number two, what do we need do now? number three, what can we do to prevent of mitigate the risk of additional wave of covid-19.

one of the most depressing outstanding needs that have yet to be addressed is the need for a national testing strategy. dr. bright in your testimony, you mentioned the need for such a strategy that ensures tests are among other things available to everyone who needs them. i wrote a letter to the democratic and the republican house leadership in the house and senate, we really impressed upon them the need for outlining the important of robust testing plan for our testing and tracing. while current testing capacity is 1.6 million diagnostic tests

per week, healthcare experts say we are short of the estimated 30 million tests per week that we need to get america back to work as safely and confidently as possible to mitigate a second wave of covid-19 which is one of my biggest concerns. what do nhs need to be doing ? d >> there is confusiare confusio tests. there are antiagent test and there is antibodies test. there is a lot of confusions. the first thing hhs need to s t

is determine which of those tests were needed. if the antiagent test were needed and readily available in some cases, what does it tell americans or employers or schools of the potential of an individual who has a positive negative on that test of their potential to have different results the next day or later that day? th there is a lot of confusions of this test. the first thing hhs should do is determine the type of test and how it will be used effectively then make sure we have enough types of tests and they are in the right place and people are using them know what the data tells them and how to use it effectively. there is a lot of con penutifus there. it is not just a test. many different tests they tell you different things. >> thank you. why do you think that our nation

have struggled with ramping up testing capacity unlike other countries and were there contingency in place or a backup in spite of th in this situation we are now? >> the struggle is we are too late. when we had considerations with many manufactures, they have been creative of how they ramp up. we allowed many of these capabilities to be offshore. we have much more capabilities expanding domestic capacity when it is in our country chwhen we n ramp up and bring those innovations to the u.s. when a global need in competition for the supply chain also significantly impaired our ability to ramp up. >> again, i want to thank you so much for the time you have contributed to our country but also for your courage to be here right now. many of us are challenged as democrats and republicans to make sure that our country is

safe and healthy and it really is -- i don't think i have ever in my lifetime seen anything like this and it does chorequirs to look back and look forward and make sure that we have what we need as a country. i thank you again and i yield back the balance of my time. >> it is a pleasure to recognize the gentleman from illinois, mr. rush for his five-minute of questioning. >> do you have your microphone on? >> yes, i have it on now. >> i am in washington.

this amazes me of your courage and insights and commitment. i am just so new. your report and scientific process -- i am absolutely convinced that you and the ones who rised taised the alarm in w china, -- it has been widely

reported that president obama's white house national security council left the administration, detailed and thorough document on how to proceed to a pandemic and then you ever any input in that claim? >> yes, sir, i did. we had input in that play book. >> as far as you know any of those recommendations in that

administration? >> i think the play book hbook changed and i don't think they follow the playbook. >> while we must learn from the virus and coexist, our response of forward thinking and forward moving. i have been working on developing a comprehensive strategy for testing and tracing and my legislation to hire and train to engage in testing and contact tracing.

>> in your testimony you said the virus is out there. we need to be able to find it and isolate it. i could not agree with you more. my question i believe is relevant - ass an expert of the pandemic lead should be, how important is testing? >> it is important, we need to

have a strategy where everyone follows to test where the virus is infected. then we have to appropriately isolate that person and quarantine so they don't infect others. we need to trace their contacts and understand who they may be exposed to and be able to test those individuals and if they been infected as well. we need to isolate those. through concerted and coordinated efforts across the country, we can't be able to identify where the virus is and who has been exposed and give theme proper treatment and isolation and we can slow this virus significantly. that has to be in a coordinated way. we have to have the right test and enough of those tests. it is not something we do once and we are done. it is something we have to continually do in the community. so, it is not just that we need one test for every person in america, we need multiple tests, the right types of tests. we need the right types of individuals and professionals who know how to use those tests

to trace individual contacts and isolate that virus and stop it from spreading. >> i certainly thank you so very much and thank you for again for being here and letting the american people know what's going on in our nation with this pandemic. madame chair, i yield back the balance of my time. >> gentleman yields back. there is no request fro from -- you're out of speaker. >> you have been listening here to some damming testimonies from the man who was in charge of the america's vaccine efforts who said he was demoted because he sount sounded the alarm of the trump administration of lack of urgency in fighting the coronavirus because he refused to push the unproven treatment touted by the president. dr. bright says the white house ignored his warnings of

coronavirus. he says time is running out to stop further spreads across america. he says that the u.s. lacked and still lacks a national strategy. he opposed the broad use of hydroxychloroquine, a drug that the president called early on a game changer which is since been certainly questioned and disprov disprovened. he raised concerns that once there is a vaccine, america will not distribute it fairly. he detailed to help the department officials to bulk up supply of protective personal gear, he described a chilling e-mail he got from an executive in a medical supply company who told him, the u.s. supply for n-95 masks was low. this was an e-mail that bright described and he has said we are in deep --.

i want to go to elizabeth cohen. clearly this is alarming to hear rick bright describing the administration and where we are with the president and where we are looking with our future. >> yes, bran ianna, there is on one treatment that's shown to use with covid-19. it is not a block buster drug. it does seem to help and it is the only one. when rick bright told us in this hearing back in early february, he told people who he worked with, i think remdesivir may show some promise, let's talk about showing up our supplies of that. fast forward to today, there is not enough remdesivir to go around just to give you one example. it is being allocated by the government, just to give you one example the city of san

francisco have enough doses for four patients and they have 70 patients in the hospital of the city of san francisco with the coronavirus. 70 patients who may benefit from it and only four could get it. those numbers are repeated across the united states. rick bright warned about this back in early february. >> and dr. hotez, i want to bring you into this conversation. you are the dean of baylor medical. this was something important to listen to rick bright talk about the timeline here. one of this things he brought up was some vaccines take ten years to develop and the timeline that the administration is talking about is ambitious. clearly overly ambitious if you listen to what he said. >> brianna, we had this discussion before that a typical

timeline for a vaccine is measured in decades and the record is something of four or five years for ebola or months vacci vaccine. can we do this in 12 or 15 months. it is all hands-on deck trying to do that. the testimony today really points out how am birbitious ths and whether we can do that is a big question. we are working day and night to make it happen. a few things that give me particular concerns of this language that's been used which is actually being counter productive talking about operation work speed or saying we'll have a vaccine by the fall coming out of the administration when we know that's not true. what this is doing is of course is getting people scared that any vaccine that are developed

won't be safe and piling onto that is an an tie vaccine movement in the united states that's aggressive and vaccine cause autism and i spent years, i have a daughter with autism and i have been writing about that. also showing there is no links between vaccine and that vacc e vaccines are rushed. survey shows significant percentage of americans will not take the vaccine if it is made. we have to do a lot of damage control around that and this gets to another point that dr. bright made that we don't have sort of an overarching plan. we urgently need a communication

plan. a number of things he's been talking about that we have been talking about the last few months. he knew coming out of china that healthcare providers were getting sick and incredibly high rates of high morbidity of the number of deaths. we saw it in europe so rick bright sounded the alarm about this. >> doctor, let's take a pause because we have the sound from the hearing. let's listen to rick bright talking about his early warnings when it came to protective gears for he'll caalthcare workers. >> i was getting alerts from industry colleagues mid and late january telling me that from the outside view that supply chain was diminishing rapidly. other countries we relied on supplying these masks were blocking exports and stopping transfer of those masks to the united states.

i learn that tchina was trying o buy equipment from the united states producers to have it ship to china so they wcan make more. each of these alerts pushed our leadership. i pushed those warnings to our critical infrastructure protection team, i pushed those to our strategic stockpile team who has the responsibility of procuring those medical supplies for our stockpile. i was met with indifference saying they were too busy and they did not have a plan or did not know who was responsible for procuring those. in some cases they had a sick child and they'll get back to it later in the week. a number of excuses. never any action. it was weeks after my pushing that vary was sent out to manufactures and producers of those masks, asking producers or

companies if they actually made those masks. >> dr. hotez, that was part of the hearing to me it was like there was a pit in my stomach listening to that that he knew so early on that he was faced and confronted with oppositions within hhs for saying there is a shortage. listening the doctors like you who were watching this in january, you saw this slow rolling tsunami coming into the u.s. and the thing about the ppe was that you didn't have to reinvent the wheel on this, you can see what was happening in china. what did you think about his description of the interworkings of his warnings in the government? >> the people were talking about medical students who are now in residency programs and training programs in new york and at the

front lines and they're the ones getting sick and they're the ones putting their lives on the line because of this. this is troubling. anyone could have been following the information coming out of the server of the archive and med archive, we knew the health care providers were going to be in a lot of trouble. this is what coronaviruses do. sars in 2003, disproportionately affected health care workers. so this is the modus operandi of these coronaviruses. there's no secret this was going to be a huge issue and the numbers of health care providers who died in europe, i think in the hundreds now. so the fact that everybody seemed to know this was coming to the united states and yet, little was done or it was obscured. these are people i've mentored

for the last decade now, being put on the front lines and being put at risk because of this. >> it's sickening knowing they could have been protected. one of the things going into this, gloria, there was a counterpoint to, if he was someone who actually favored hydroxychloroquine, that drug, he sort of described with nuance how he had favored the scientific testing of it, but that he didn't want it to be wide lly available or pushed in the stockpile so all of a sudden, it would flood the market and people would be taking it when it wasn't proven to be safe and i found one of the republican arguments to be interesting in that, they basically were saying he shouldn't have even been there testifying because it went against normal, i guess, protocol for his testimony and yet they seem to be touting this drug and going through not

normal protocol for it to be used on humans. >> well, his whole point here was, look, hydroxychloroquine if you want to talk about it on an emergency use basis, you have to put guardrails around it. make sure it's prescribed by a doctor, so not everyone can get it without having a doctor involved with the patient. what he was trying to do is say, look, we do need these guardrails or else this could really be a problem because it could potentially be detrimental to patients and we've learned since then, brianna, there have been studies that he was right about hydroxychloroquine and so what i think we saw today was really somebody that the president said, oh, he was angry, and he's disgruntled. i think what we saw was somebody

who was sad, saying, wait a minute, i'm sorry this happened. he didn't seem disgruntled to me as much as he did, in fact, he praised peter navarro at the white house for helping go to the department of defense to get swabs, for example. he seemed to me to be somebody to say, look, you have to pay attention to the way things did not work in the past, to make sure that we can have them work in the future, and so he was raising red flags for people to be aware of that there needs to be strategic plan, for example, if there is a vaccine and he was, he put a little, he said, wait a minute, i'm not sure it can be done that quickly but he said, look, if it could be done that quickly, we have to be sure that we have a distribution system in this country and if we don't, it could become

catastrophic. that was his word. he was kind of looking towards the future here and saying the public has to be aware that we need a plan going forward because we did not have one in the past and look at what occurred. >> that's right. gloria, thank you so much. elizabeth, dr. hotez, really appreciate all of your perspective and stay with me because president trump and hhs secretary alex azar on their way right to tour a medical supply facility in pennsylvania but before they left, weighed in on bright's testimony and kaitlan collins is at the white house. tell us what they said. >> reporter: yeah, brianna. the president said he'd been watching rick bright testify this morning and he dismissed many of the claims he made and the health and human services secretary alex azar, one of his superiors, weighed in and pushed back and what you hear him say is rare, we've not heard him say

about rick bright, only gotten a few statements from hhs and now here he is coming out with the president to push back on what rick bright was saying. >> dr. bright is up there testifying today. everything he's complaining about was achieved. >> we've had a tremendous response to the hydroxy. great response to zinc. a lot of people have sworn by it. and we'll see. i don't know him. i never met him. i don't want to meet him, but i watched him and he looks like an angry disgruntled employee who frankly, according to some people, didn't do a very good job. >> reporter: you see there, rick bright is a disgruntled employee. it's notable, he was talking about hydroxychloroquine and when rick bright was testifying today, he said he believed the president made inaccurate

statements or not informed statements when he said there had been tremendous progress in hydroxychloroquine and whether or not it could treat coronavirus and also, talking about a timeline for a coronavirus vaccine. the president has consistently offered a pretty rosy timeline and he repeated it again today saying he believes there could be a vaccine by the end of the year and rick bright says he does not think that's the case, that's if everything goes right and he says, nothing has ever gone all right so far when it comes to vaccine development and doing so really quickly. >> he said it can take up to ten years and sometimes you don't even have one. it was pretty startling to hear him describe that. kaitlan collins, let's get back to dr. peter hotez. what did you think about what you heard from the president there? >> yeah, you know, i just don't understand. it sounds like he's still sticking with hydroxychloroquine and azythromycin.

there was work showing hydroxychloroquine worked against influenza in the test tube and unfortunately, it didn't pan out to work as a drug that actually worked in patients. so we already knew that was a bit of a red flag for hydroxychloroquine. the studies were always small. we were reserving judgment to see maybe it should be left out of larger clinical trial and eventually it was, shown not to be effective and dangerous in high doses. so i don't understand why, there seems to always be this magical thinking in the white house that we're going to, some miracle cure was going to solve the problem for the united states, and that's not how it works. even with regards to the vaccine. there's this magical thinking, again, that it's going to be like the polio vaccine we're going to bring all the press into the auditorium at the university of michigan and pull back the curtains and there's the wizard of us telling us we

can all go dancing in the streets. there's unrealistic expectations about how technology works. this is something that would be slowly rolled out, and they're still sticking to having things by the end of the year, which is not going to happen. we probably won't be in phase three trials to evaluate effectiveness and fully understand safety probably until the fall. and probably at least a year after that, until late 2021 and that would be a world record. so, you know, we've got to get it, and this is where it gets to having a master plan. leadersh leadership, not this magical cure. it's going to have to be a carefully thought out covid-19 recovery plan that not only includes the economic recovery but actually being able to sustain that economic recovery through very carefully thought out guidance and that's the

other piece that's missing. we're not hearing from the centers for disease control on how we're going to do the testing at work or the contact tracing, what's going to be the system for surveillance, the public health communications, epidemiologic models at the city level. all of that, still not in place. in fact, the only beginnings we're having of that coming out of individual centers. the harvard center put out some detailed plans and a couple of others. we're still not getting that coming from the cdc. we've never gotten the model of the cdc. so unfortunately, a lot of rick bright's testimony rings true on the kind of things we've been talking about the last weeks and months. >> dr. peter hotez, thank you so much. we appreciate that.

check this out, a special event on cnn. new cnn global town hall with anderson cooper and dr. sanjay gupta. they're going to be joined by mlb commissioner rob manfred and former health and human services secretary kathleen sebelius and activist greta thunberg. republican senator richard burr announced he'll step aside as the head of the senate intelligence committee as fbi investigates stock trades he made before it shut down business and travel in the u.s. and the stock market tanked. senior justice department official said federal officials seized a cell phone belonging to burr. senior congressional correspondent manu raju on capitol hill. big developments today, manu. what are you learning? >> reporter: a turn of events

affecting a powerful