Trump team weighs a CDC scrubbing to deflect mounting criticism [View all]

[babylonsister]

Trump team weighs a CDC scrubbing to deflect mounting criticism
With Trump under fire for his handling of the outbreak, his advisers are eyeing the federal bureaucracy for other culprits ahead of the election.
By NANCY COOK and ADAM CANCRYN
06/23/2020 04:30 AM EDT


White House officials are putting a target on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, positioning the agency as a coronavirus scapegoat as cases surge in many states and the U.S. falls behind other nations that are taming the pandemic.

Trump administration aides in recent weeks have seriously discussed launching an in-depth evaluation of the agency to chart what they view as its missteps in responding to the pandemic including an early failure to deploy working test kits, according to four senior administration officials. Part of that audit would include examining more closely the state-by-state death toll to tally only the Americans who died directly of Covid-19 rather than other factors. About 120,000 people in the U.S. have died of the coronavirus so far, according to the CDC’s official count.

Aides have also discussed narrowing the mission of the agency or trying to embed more political appointees within it, according to interviews with 10 current and former senior administration officials and Republicans close to the White House. One official said the overall goal would be to make the CDC nimble and more responsive.

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https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/23/trump-cdc-overhaul-coronavirus-335039