[House Hearing, 117 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]






 
                    A HEARING WITH TRUMP WHITE HOUSE

                    CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATOR

                            DR. DEBORAH BIRX

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

             SELECT SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CORONAVIRUS CRISIS

                                 OF THE

                   COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM

                        HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                             JUNE 23, 2022

                               __________

                           Serial No. 117-89

                               __________

      Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Reform
      
      
      
      
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                       Available on: govinfo.gov,
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                             ______                       


             U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE 
47-928 PDF             WASHINGTON : 2022                           
                             
                             
                             
                             
                             
                   COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM

                CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York, Chairwoman

Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of   James Comer, Kentucky, Ranking 
    Columbia                             Minority Member
Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts      Jim Jordan, Ohio
Jim Cooper, Tennessee                Virginia Foxx, North Carolina
Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia         Jody B. Hice, Georgia
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois        Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin
Jamie Raskin, Maryland               Michael Cloud, Texas
Ro Khanna, California                Bob Gibbs, Ohio
Kweisi Mfume, Maryland               Clay Higgins, Louisiana
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York   Ralph Norman, South Carolina
Rashida Tlaib, Michigan              Pete Sessions, Texas
Katie Porter, California             Fred Keller, Pennsylvania
Cori Bush, Missouri                  Andy Biggs, Arizona
Shontel M. Brown, Ohio               Andrew Clyde, Georgia
Danny K. Davis, Illinois             Nancy Mace, South Carolina
Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida    Scott Franklin, Florida
Peter Welch, Vermont                 Jake LaTurner, Kansas
Henry C. ``Hank'' Johnson, Jr.,      Pat Fallon, Texas
    Georgia                          Yvette Herrell, New Mexico
John P. Sarbanes, Maryland           Byron Donalds, Florida
Jackie Speier, California            Vacancy
Robin L. Kelly, Illinois
Brenda L. Lawrence, Michigan
Mark DeSaulnier, California
Jimmy Gomez, California
Ayanna Pressley, Massachusetts


                  Jennifer Gaspar, SSCC Staff Director
                      Beth Mueller, Chief Counsel
                        Yusra Abdelmeguid, Clerk

                      Contact Number: 202-225-5051

                  Mark Marin, Minority Staff Director

             Select Subcommittee On The Coronavirus Crisis

               James E. Clyburn, South Carolina, Chairman
Maxine Waters, California            Steve Scalise, Louisiana, Ranking 
Carolyn B. Maloney, New York             Minority Member
Nydia M. Velazquez, New York         Jim Jordan, Ohio
Bill Foster, Illinois                Mark E. Green, Tennessee
Jamie Raskin, Maryland               Nicole Malliotakis, New York
Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois        Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Iowa

                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page
Hearing held on June 23, 2022....................................     1

                                Witness

Deborah L. Birx, M.D., Former White House Coronavirus Response 
  Coordinator (Mar. 2020 - Jan. 2021)
Oral Statement...................................................     5

Written opening statements and the written statement of the 
  witness are available on the U.S. House of Representatives 
  Document Repository at: docs.house.gov.

                           Index of Documents

                              ----------                              

  * August 11 email Dr. Birx sent to CDC, Director of the FDA 
  Commissioner, and Dr. Fauci; submitted by Rep. Maloney.

  * Staff report, ``The Atlas Dogma: The Trump Administration's 
  Embrace of a Dangerous and Discredited Herd Immunity Via Mass 
  Infection Strategy,'' June 2022; submitted by Rep. Raskin.

  * Questions for the Record: to Dr. Birx; submitted by Rep. 
  Maloney.

  * Questions for the Record: to Dr. Birx; submitted by Rep. 
  Waters.

Documents entered into the record for this hearing are available 
  at: docs.house.gov.


                    A HEARING WITH TRUMP WHITE HOUSE

                    CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATOR

                            DR. DEBORAH BIRX

                              ----------                              


                        Thursday, June 23, 2022

                   House of Representatives
                  Committee on Oversight and Reform
              Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis
                                                   Washington, D.C.

    The select subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:09 
a.m., in room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building and via Zoom; 
the Hon. James Clyburn [Chairman of the subcommittee] 
presiding.
    Present: Representatives Clyburn, Maloney, Foster, Raskin, 
Krishnamoorthi, Scalise, Jordan, Malliotakis, and Miller-Meeks.
    Chairman Clyburn. Good morning. The committee will come to 
order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a 
recess of the committee at any time. I now recognize myself for 
an opening statement.
    As President Biden declared earlier this year in his State 
of the Union address, the coronavirus, and I quote, ``need no 
longer control our lives,'' end of quote. We have been able to 
move beyond the crisis phase of the pandemic in large part 
because of the powerful protection from severe illness and 
death provided by coronavirus vaccines, which now are 
authorized for all Americans over six months old. I applaud the 
scientists who developed these lifesaving vaccines, and I 
applaud the Biden-Harris Administration for distributing them 
throughout the country effectively, efficiently, and equitably. 
I urge all Americans who are not currently up to date on their 
coronavirus vaccinations to get vaccinated and boosted in 
accordance with the current recommendations.
    Even as we move beyond the coronavirus crisis, scientists 
tell us that there will eventually be another pandemic caused 
by another new pathogen. That is why we must learn from our 
experiences with this coronavirus crisis so that we can save as 
many lives as possible the next time we are confronted with 
such a deadly public health threat.
    That is the objective of the select subcommittee as we 
continue to investigate our Nation's response to the 
coronavirus pandemic, with a particular focus on the period 
when the American people were most vulnerable to severe 
illnesses and deaths.
    Our investigations have found that the Trump administration 
engaged in a rampant campaign of political interference in the 
pandemic response: minimizing, undermining, and eventually even 
suppressing the work of scientists and public health experts in 
a misguided and dangerous attempt to advance the President's 
political goals.
    Our witness here today, Dr. Deborah Birx, has firsthand 
knowledge of the failures of the previous Administration's 
pandemic response from her tenure as coordinator of the White 
House Coronavirus Task Force. This is her first time testifying 
at any congressional hearing about her experience in that role.
    Based on what she observed, Dr. Birx has estimated that 
more than 130,000 lives could have been saved if the Trump 
administration had implemented optimal mitigation measures in 
2020 and early 2021.
    The Trump administration's failures began early in the 
crisis and persisted for the remainder of their term in office. 
The Administration failed to take basic steps to acquire 
critical supplies, develop tests, and prepare for the growing 
threat in the early months of 2020, leaving our country 
woefully underprepared.
    The President failed to share accurate medical information 
with the American people, instead spreading dangerous 
misinformation as we will now see on video.
    [Video plays.]
    Chairman Clyburn. Consistent with these dangerously 
inaccurate statements, President Trump and his advisers 
sidelined public health experts and sound science in favor of 
discredited strategies that they believed served his political 
goals. As detailed in a report released by the select 
subcommittee earlier this week, senior Trump administration 
officials embraced a dangerous herd immunity via mass infection 
strategy that Dr. Birx has described, as I quote, ``a true 
threat to a comprehensive and critical response to this 
pandemic,'' end of quote.
    President Trump ignored warnings from top scientists 
throughout 2020, including from Dr. Birx when she anticipated 
that the Nation would be entering, and another quote, ``most 
concerning'' phase of the pandemic in late 2020. Instead of 
taking lifesaving action to mitigate surging cases, President 
Trump prioritized his re-election campaign and the Big Lie, 
leading to the deadliest period of the pandemic to date.
    President Trump's contempt for science and his persistent 
attacks on public health experts have had a lasting harmful 
impact on our country, undermining many Americans' trust in 
public health officials and institutions, and contributing to 
the continued politicization of public health. This damage has 
resulted in far too many coronavirus deaths, including deaths 
that could have been prevented through vaccinations. Many 
preventable deaths have been disproportionately concentrated 
among those who trusted the former President.
    We cannot bring those Americans back, nor the more than 
130,000 who Dr. Birx estimates lost their lives before vaccines 
as a result of the previous Administration's failures. But we 
must learn all we can about these failures so that we can 
properly prepare for future threats. Dr. Birx, we look forward 
to hearing from you today in furtherance of this critical work.
    I now recognize the Ranking Member Scalise for his opening 
statement.
    Mr. Scalise. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I would like to 
welcome Dr. Birx, and I appreciate you being here. I would also 
like to thank you for your four decades of service to our 
country, including 29 years in the United States Army.
    Like Groundhog Day, my Democratic colleagues will use 
today's hearing to continue their political vendetta against 
the former Trump administration while continuing to mask the 
many failures that have occurred with respect to COVID-19 under 
the Biden administration.
    It is our job to perform congressional oversight over the 
Administration. That is why Republicans on this subcommittee 
have focused on serious issues like the CDC's school reopening 
guidance and the emails that prove the Biden administration 
colluded with union bosses to keep millions of American 
children locked out of their classrooms. We now know that the 
social isolation and school closures caused by the COVID 
lockdowns resulted in serious mental health issues and dramatic 
learning loss for millions of American kids.
    The last time I tried to talk about this incredibly 
important issue, Mr. Chairman, you had urged me not to look 
backward, stating, quote, ``I would hope we won't spend all our 
time today talking about yesterday. I am concerned about 
tomorrow and the day after.'' He went on to say, ``All of us 
can spend the rest of our lives talking about what happened 
before COVID-19 or we can spend a little time trying to figure 
out how best to move forward from whatever mistakes may have 
been made, whoever may have made them, or we can spend all of 
our time assigning blame.''
    Yet here we are today, having yet another hearing with the 
witness to discuss things that happened more than two years 
ago, while working for the former President. No hearings with 
Biden's first COVID-19 response coordinator and Dr. Birx's 
immediate successor, Jeff Zeints. No hearings with President 
Biden's current coordinator, Dr. Ashish Jha. And, of course, no 
hearings in more than year with President Biden's chief medical 
advisor, Dr. Fauci. In fact, now marks 434 days since Dr. Fauci 
has testified before any House committee, any House committee. 
Why are they hiding Dr. Fauci, and why has it been 434 days 
since Dr. Fauci has testified before a committee?
    We have asked for him. In fact, one of the last hearings, 
we asked him to be our witness on the Republican side, and he 
told us he would like to have come and be a witness but that 
the Chairman and the Biden administration would not extend him 
that invitation. So, we will continue to ask, Mr. Chairman, 
that you extend Dr. Fauci that invitation, and we would ask the 
Biden administration to allow him to come testify, not to keep 
him hidden for over a year now from any House committee.
    Of course, I welcome Dr. Birx's testimony today, but I 
would be remiss if I did not point out the irony of those past 
statements, talking about the past. It is noteworthy that this 
subcommittee would focus on the events of years ago while 
denying our ability to address the failures of the Biden 
administration that are still going on to this day. More 
Americans died from COVID during President Biden's first year 
in office than President Trump's, even though multiple vaccines 
were available when President Biden came into office. And we 
are currently dealing with the serious impact COVID lockdown 
policies have had on millions of our young children. I am 
worried the effects will last for years to come on those kids, 
jeopardizing their future ability to achieve their dreams.
    We need a proper investigation into the origins of COVID. 
Obviously, Mr. Chairman, you are well aware we have been asking 
for a hearing on the origins of COVID for well over a year now, 
and we will continue to. And it begs the question, why the 
select subcommittee refuses to hold a hearing on the origins 
when the World Health Organization and now a growing list of 
leading experts in the scientific community all deem this 
worthy of investigation.
    Dr. Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University, who himself 
thinks that this virus came from a lab, said, quote, ``a 
blunder of biotech, not a natural spillover.'' And now it is 
being reported that Dr. Tedros--yes, the head of the World 
Health Organization--is quietly confiding to officials that he 
believes this pandemic originated in a lab in China. I wonder 
if Dr. Sachs and Dr. Tedros, to use the Chairman's own words, 
are, quote, ``using the issue of the origin of the virus to 
shift accountability from President Trump to Dr. Anthony 
Fauci,'' as we were accused of doing when we started asking for 
hearing into the origins of COVID. Well, now you see these 
leading health experts also questioning whether COVID started 
in the Wuhan lab. We should have that hearing.
    More than 1 million Americans have died from COVID. We 
should understand how this virus started, not only because we 
owe it to those that have died but also to protect against 
future pandemics. China was doing risky research in a lab that 
likely caused this pandemic. Did China lie to the world about 
the virus and how it spread? These are questions we should 
absolutely know the answer to.
    To that end, I know Dr. Birx has told us before that the 
origins of the virus are detectable if China would be willing 
to share the earliest sequences of the virus. And Dr. Birx has 
previously testified or said in earlier statements from 
scientists, scientific publications, and the media that 
downplaying the lab leak were premature and not based on data. 
I am glad we will get the opportunity to hear what she has to 
say about China's involvement and how the U.S. and the rest of 
the world were misled by China and the World Health 
Organization back in those early days.
    I also look forward to hearing Dr. Birx's suggestions for 
reforming the CDC. Over the course of the pandemic, Americans 
have lost trust in what once was a premier public health 
organization. Their failures must be confronted in order for 
that trust to be restored.
    With that, Mr. Chairman, I am happy to yield back the 
balance of my time.
    Chairman Clyburn. Thank you very much, Mr. Scalise.
    Dr. Birx, welcome to the select subcommittee. Thank you for 
taking the time to testify. Please rise and raise your right 
hand.
    Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to 
give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, 
so help you, God?
    [Witness is sworn.]
    Chairman Clyburn. You may be seated. Let the record show 
that the witness answered in the affirmative. Without 
objection, your written statement will be made part of the 
record.
    Dr. Birx, you are recognized for five minutes for your 
opening statement.

    STATEMENT OF DR. DEBORAH BIRX, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE 
                CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE COORDINATOR

    Dr. Birx. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Ranking Member 
Scalise. I really appreciate the time of the committee and your 
brilliant staff, who have been working on this issue for more 
than two years. It is important that we look at both what works 
and what did not work and address those issues in real-time to 
save American lives.
    If I could have the first slide. Thank you very much.
    What we are still missing in the COVID response, and that 
is lessons learned from battling pandemics around the globe. 
What I learned as a military doctor and a public servant in 
working on pandemics around the globe that is an American 
response really required bipartisan support. PEPFAR had 
bipartisan support across Presidents and across these 
committees, ensuring funding over the years, and that is how 
you have an impact. You have an impact when our two sides of 
the aisle work together effectively to make a change.
    I also learned that plans are great, but they must adapt 
and continually change based on the data. Tools are great, but 
they are only great if we use them effectively. So, as we 
continue to develop new tools, we constantly need to be setting 
clear goals and utilizing data in real-time to ensure that we 
are achieving those goals across all of America, both urban and 
rural areas.
    Data in real-time allows us to see who we are reaching and 
who we are not reaching. Implementation science is core to 
program improvement. Behavioral science research is core to 
understanding the structural barriers, whether it is vaccine 
hesitancy or whether it is hesitancy to attest and to treat 
strategy. Listening, planning and funding of peer community 
outreach organizations and community leadership is critical.
    The next slide shows the progress that we made by using 
data in real-time against the HIV pandemic. We increased our 
data utilization beginning in 2014, and in the countries with 
the highest incidence and prevalence of HIV, both Eswatini and 
Lesotho effectively had more than a 50 percent and a 46 percent 
decline in new infections when you use data and work with 
communities in real--time.
    Next slide.
    So, we have to move from hope and sometimes magical 
thinking to the reality that we have the tools today, between 
our antivirals, our monoclonal antibodies, and our vaccines, to 
save lives. But first, we have to ensure that all Americans can 
survive. As shown in this graphic, those over 70 remain 
persistently the highest group of hospitalizations, at the 
highest rate, despite being the highest vaccinated and boosted 
component of the United States.
    Next slide.
    Simple conclusions do not address the complex issues that 
we are facing in America today, and I am going to go quickly 
through these slides to prove that in rural America. Rural 
America is older, poorer, has higher comorbidities, less access 
to primary care, less access to subspecialty care, less access 
to high-technology care, and a higher death rate from all 
causes of mortality dating back decades.
    Next slide, please.
    This slide shows that urban areas are enriched for young 
people who have much less significant complications from COVID, 
and the rural areas are enriched for older Americans.
    Next slide.
    The level of childhood poverty is marked across rural areas 
of nine states and up through Appalachia as well as our tribal 
nations.
    Next slide.
    Levels of obesity are concentrated along our Appalachian, 
our Southern states, and up into our tribal nations.
    Next slide.
    This shows accessibility to trauma, whether it is Level 1 
or Level 2 trauma. Now that is just a surrogate for the 
sophistication of hospitalization and access to subspecialty 
care. In Mississippi, there is one Level 1 trauma. In the New 
York City area, there are 22. If you look at the map, the light 
blue areas illustrate that there is no access to either Level 1 
or Level 2 trauma by helicopter or by ambulance within that 
golden hour of 60 minutes.
    Next slide.
    This slide shows, in the orange and the darker orange 
categories, compared to the blue, the all-cause, age-adjusted 
fatalities in the United States. I used 2014 to show that 
people in rural counties have been dying at a higher rate in 
the United States for more than a decade. This is an emergency 
that has been pointed out by this current issue of coronavirus.
    And finally, with the last slide, hospitalization rates, 
and deaths continue in a very high level, both through 2020 and 
2021. In fact, the summer surge of 2021 was about 40 percent 
more deadly than the summer surge of 2020.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Clyburn. Well, thank you very much, Dr. Birx.
    Each member will now have five minutes for questions, and 
the chair now recognizes himself for five minutes.
    Dr. Birx, you were interviewed by the select subcommittee 
last October about your role in the Trump administration's 
pandemic response. During that interview, you were asked 
whether President Trump had done--and here is the quote--
``everything he could to try to mitigate the spread of the 
virus and save lives during the pandemic.'' You responded, 
``No.''
    What should President Trump have done differently?
    Dr. Birx. Thank you, Chairman Clyburn. So, when you do not 
have tools, when you do not have vaccines, you do not have 
antivirals, you do not have knowledge of effective treatment, 
the most important thing you have in a pandemic early on is 
communication, and clear and concise and repetitive 
communication about the seriousness of this virus.
    I think, from the very beginning, putting this and 
utilizing a syndromic flu approach, and creating the sense 
among the American people that this would act and basically 
have the fatalities equivalent to flu, created a sense among 
the American people that this was not going to be a serious 
pandemic, and that continued communication of underplaying the 
seriousness of this pandemic, that we could already see 
evidence of high fatality rates, from China into Asia and then 
early into Europe, that that concise, consistent communication 
about the seriousness of the pandemic resulted in inaction 
early on, I think across our agencies, but also created a false 
sense of security in America where we used words, and it was 
not just the President. Many of our leaders were using words 
like ``we can contain'' and you cannot contain a virus that 
cannot be seen, and it was not being seen because we were not 
testing.
    Chairman Clyburn. Thank you very much. You also told us 
that the consequences of President Trump's failure in that 
regard were devastating, and you estimated that 130,000 lives 
were lost unnecessarily. Am I correct about that?
    Dr. Birx. Yes, Mr. Chairman, and as I write in my witness 
statement, we continue to lose American lives at a rate that I 
find completely unacceptable. I think we still are not 
effectively communicating the effects of this, both antivirals 
of vaccines. We are not effectively working within rural 
communities to improve their health care and improve their 
access and decrease their structural barriers. Many of our 
rural physicians, when you say to people, ``Go talk to your 
primary doctor,'' and they do not have one, and they have been 
receiving care from emergency rooms 150 miles away, that is not 
a program. That is not a program that is reaching every 
American.
    And so, yes, I was concerned and did everything I could to 
combat the issues in 2020, but I remain concerned today, and 
that is why I appreciate the committee continuing to be 
concerned about our coronavirus response.
    Chairman Clyburn. Thank you very much for that. You know, 
one of the things that I have been advocating for, for years, 
ever since I have been here--well, before I got here--community 
health centers, and trying to place one within commuting 
distance of everybody in this country in rural America, as you 
indicated in your statement. People have been dying and getting 
sick without treatment for decades, and it seems that every 
time we fashion a response, we talk as if people are living 
right down the street from a drugstore or around the corner 
from a doctor, and we do not seem to take into account the full 
composition of this great country of ours.
    And I thank you so much because we just finished 
celebrating a new national holiday that came about because of 
the failure to communicate. Because of the failure to 
communicate, thousands of enslaved folks remained in slavery 
for 2 1/2 years because nobody communicated with them. I think 
that communication is, in fact, the key in so many things, and 
thank you so much for your ability and willingness to 
communicate.
    I yield the ranking member for questions.
    Mr. Scalise. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Birx, when were 
you the Coronavirus Response Coordinator?
    Dr. Birx. I came on board on March 2 and left, I think, on 
the 18th or 19th of January, 2021.
    Mr. Scalise. Yes, so March 2020 to January 2021. Gotcha. We 
have had these conservations with some other witnesses, 
including Dr. Fauci over a year ago when he had come before, 
about herd immunity. I know Mr. Jordan has asked him, you know, 
what herd immunity is. He would not even define herd immunity. 
Was there ever an attempt to look at a herd immunity strategy 
when you were the coordinator?
    Dr. Birx. Certainly, there were individuals who discussed 
the fact that infections should be allowed to run through the 
population in those who are not vulnerable while protecting the 
vulnerable. But as many other Americans, I live in a 
multigenerational household, and so of the 35 million Americans 
that we just discussed, over 70, that are vulnerable still to 
severe disease, even some of which have been vaccinated and 
boosted, that when you have community spread you cannot protect 
those 35 million Americans who live in multigenerational 
households. Only 1.5 million Americans live in long-term care 
facilities. And so whatever strategy we have has to speak to 
all of Americans.
    Mr. Scalise. Yes, and we have even had hearings early off 
on the nursing home scandal, where you saw some Governors 
follow proper scientific guidance to protect seniors in nursing 
homes, and then you saw others, starting with Governor Cuomo at 
the time in New York, and unfortunately, other Governors 
followed, where they said you have to leave the hospital and go 
back to the nursing home, and actually banned them from 
testing. Did you see that, and were you concerned about that 
when it was happening? Because we saw thousands of people die 
from that failed strategy.
    Dr. Birx. You know, as I was assembling the data, and I 
think--and hopefully in the written testimony, it is clear--
what made American vulnerable was the lack of data streams on 
just common diseases. We were not testing for flu. So, as the 
U.S. Congress has supported me to bring advanced medical care 
and diagnostic capacity to the far reaches at the end of the 
road in Sub-Saharan Africa, I returned to a country that had 
less access than what I created in Sub-Saharan Africa, less 
access to routine medical care, less access to testing.
    Mr. Scalise. And obviously, we worked to ramp up testing. 
When President Biden took office, would you say there was a 
robust testing plan and apparatus in place to hand over to 
President Biden?
    Dr. Birx. I think there were two components of that. We 
were up to about 1.3 million PCR tests a day.
    Mr. Scalise. And growing, right?
    Dr. Birx. And growing. We had put aside half a billion 
dollars, nearly, to increase 20 Federal surge sites, and left 
that for the incoming Administration to execute those sites.
    Mr. Scalise. And let me ask you. Were in the Administration 
when there were reports that President Biden was presented with 
a more robust testing plan and turned it down over a year ago? 
We have never had a hearing on that. We have tried to. But were 
you working with the Administration when that plan was 
presented that was turned down by President Biden?
    Dr. Birx. No. I knew, unfortunately, that my 40-year 
government career would come to a terminal event if I went into 
the Trump White House. And let me make it clear----
    Mr. Scalise. No. I'm talking about the Biden White House.
    Dr. Birx. Yes. So, I was gone by the time President Biden 
came to office.
    Mr. Scalise. All right. Well, let me ask you this because 
you said in your comments earlier, your submitted testimony, 
quote, ``We learned from Governors in Arizona, Texas, New 
Mexico, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida about 
data-driven mitigation to decrease community spread while 
opening retail and outdoor dining.'' We have seen many people, 
from President Biden on down to some of my Democratic 
colleagues here in Congress, criticize some of those very 
Governors on the strategies they took early off that turned out 
to be very effective. Do you think that was a healthy thing to 
do, to be criticizing Governors who were using that data to 
protect the vulnerable citizens while allowing kids to be back 
in school, for example, and other people to be able to go on 
with their lives without all of the devastating consequences we 
saw from shutdowns?
    Dr. Birx. I think we were very fortunate to be able to work 
with a group of scientists at CHOP, in Philadelphia, David 
Rubin and his team, who modeled for me, what mitigations could 
be taken while maintaining as much of society open as possible.
    Mr. Scalise. And I know I am running out of time. Do you 
think it is healthy when the Biden administration is 
criticizing some of those Governors that you yourself said did 
things well, before they actually----
    Dr. Birx. The Governors proactively looked at the models 
and agreed to institute them. We were able to get data that 
showed the impact of that model in decreasing--in real life, in 
population-level health--in decreasing new inflections.
    Mr. Scalise. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
    Chairman Clyburn. Thank you. The chair now recognizes Ms. 
Maloney for five minutes.
    Mrs. Maloney. Dr. Birx, earlier this week, the Select 
Committee released a report on how the Trump White House 
embraced a dangerous and discredited herd immunity via mass 
infection strategy, pushed by Dr. Scott Atlas, President 
Trump's special advisor on the pandemic. We recently obtained--
actually, just yesterday--additional documents that shed 
further light on how Dr. Atlas', I would call radical views, 
enabled President Trump to prioritize his political prospects, 
his own election, over America's health.
    Mr. Chairman, I ask for unanimous consent to place in the 
record this August 11 email Dr. Birx sent to the CDC, Director 
of the FDA Commissioner, and Dr. Fauci.
    Chairman Clyburn. Without objection.
    Mrs. Maloney. And it is up on various places for people to 
see.
    So, Dr. Birx, in this email, you wrote that there was a, 
quote, ``dangerous meeting in the Oval Office,'' end quote, 
yesterday. Briefly, what was the meeting you were referring to, 
and why did you find it so, quote, ``dangerous''?
    Dr. Birx. So, my access to the President was quite limited 
after mid-April, I would say, and so I was called to a meeting 
that was going to be on vaccine and vaccine development. Dr. 
Atlas was there. I was there. We were in the middle of a summer 
surge. I was very concerned about what was happening. Of 
course, I was out in the field and collecting data, both in 
real-time but also on the ground. And I went to this meeting, 
and essentially Dr. Atlas put forward--I used that opportunity 
to inform the President about the depth and breadth of the 
viral spread across the South, the rising hospitalizations, and 
what would follow would be rising deaths, and what could be 
done, and what I was encouraging the Southern Governors to do 
and what they were doing.
    And Dr. Atlas took that opportunity to make the point that 
it did not matter what you did, each of these surges would be 
identical. It did not matter if you tested. In fact, testing 
young people, and asking them to isolate while they were 
infectious, was an infringement of their rights and was 
equivalent to a lockdown.
    So, these kinds of thoughts, particularly in any infectious 
disease, are dangerous. We never encouraged individuals who are 
infected with a contagious virus, no matter how that virus is 
spread, to go out and spread that virus to others. That is a 
basic principle of public health.
    And so, I used that opportunity to do my best to push back 
on his views. Obviously, he became very agitated. But I wanted 
to make sure that----
    Mrs. Maloney. Reclaiming my time because I want to put on 
record what you actually wrote. And you wrote that Dr. Atlas 
displayed, quote, ``a very different take on the epidemic,'' 
end quote, your words, and then you listed seven of his core 
beliefs. For instance, you wrote that Dr. Atlas felt, quote, 
``No matter what we do, the outcome will be the same. In other 
words, in most places, the virus has already run its course. 
There is enough herd immunity to protect the rest of the 
population,'' end quote.
    In other words, Dr. Atlas was suggesting that the Nation 
should stop taking any steps to mitigate the spread of the 
virus and let it run rampant throughout our communities. And 
you also wrote that Dr. Atlas believed that, quote, ``case 
identification is bad for the President's re-election,'' in a 
health conversation, putting re-election over solid health.
    Dr. Birx, was it your impression that decisions related to 
identifying coronavirus cases in the U.S. and otherwise testing 
were being made around political considerations?
    Dr. Birx. I was never privy to those kinds of political 
conversations because, obviously, I was not----
    Mrs. Maloney. Well, you just quoted that case 
identification is bad for the President's re-election. That is 
an election statement.
    Dr. Birx. Exactly, and that is what I wanted the other 
physicians to know what was being said, because I knew that was 
going to make more work for us in working with Governors and 
mayors and communities to ensure that we could keep people as 
safe as possible.
    Mrs. Maloney. Well, did you agree with Dr. Atlas' diagnosis 
that you should stop testing because an election is coming?
    Dr. Birx. Of course not.
    Mrs. Maloney. And, in fact, you sent the email to Dr. 
Fauci, Dr. Redfield, and Dr. Hahn, you wrote, quote, ``The 
conclusion was Dr. Atlas is brilliant, and the President will 
be following his guidance now,'' end quote.
    So Dr. Birx, what impact did Dr. Atlas' dangerous views 
have on President Trump's pandemic response? My time is up.
    Chairman Clyburn. You will have a second round, so you may 
hold onto that question.
    Mrs. Maloney. OK.
    Chairman Clyburn. The chair now recognizes Mr. Jordan for 
five minutes.
    Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Dr. Birx, why should Americans believe anything the 
government says about COVID? I mean, last summer, President 
Biden said this. Quote, ``You are not going to get COVID if you 
have these vaccinations. If you are vaccinated, you are not 
going to be hospitalized. You are not going to be in the ICU.''
    Dr. Birx, can vaccinated people get COVID?
    Dr. Birx. Yes.
    Mr. Jordan. Have vaccinated people been hospitalized with 
COVID?
    Dr. Birx. Yes.
    Mr. Jordan. And according to your testimony, it was not 
just President Biden who said things that were not accurate and 
were not true. In your testimony that you provided the 
committee, you said, ``Beginning in 2021,''--so beginning in 
the Biden administration, again, these are your words--
``agencies provided muddled and contradicting information, or 
partial information, that implied we knew something we didn't, 
which they later had to correct, which accelerated the loss of 
respect and trust in the Federal Government.''
    I will come back to my original question. Why should we 
believe anything the government tells us about COVID?
    Dr. Birx. Well, to be honest, that is why I wrote the book, 
and that is why I believe that this is a moment in time where 
we can increase accountability and transparency and provide 
that data and information in real-time to the American people, 
so they are empowered with the knowledge that they need to 
protect themselves and their families.
    We knew, early on, in January 2021, in late December 2020, 
that reinfection was occurring after natural infection. Once 
you see that--and I want to make it clear to you all and to 
anyone that is listening--this is not measles, mumps, and 
rubella. Those vaccines produce long-term immunity and can 
create herd immunity.
    Mr. Jordan. I just want to interrupt for a second, Dr. 
Birx. You said something important. You said in early 2021, 
January 2021, you knew that people who had been vaccinated 
could be reinfected.
    Dr. Birx. I knew that people who were naturally infected 
were getting reinfected, and that was quite evident from South 
Africa, and I have included it in my slides. But I think the 
reason I knew that is South Africa did a remarkably good job in 
measuring baseline antibody with their first surge. So, they 
knew 50, 60, 70 percent of some of their population had been 
infected.
    Mr. Jordan. Well, here is what I am concerned with.
    Dr. Birx. And then were reinfected.
    Mr. Jordan. Here is what I am concerned with. Let me ask 
the question this way. When the government told us, told the 
American people, that people who had been vaccinated could not 
get it, were they guessing or were they lying?
    Dr. Birx. I don't know. All I know is there was evidence 
from the global pandemic that natural reinfection was 
occurring, and since the vaccine was based on natural immunity, 
you cannot make the conclusion that the vaccine will do better 
than natural infection, although it can often do slightly 
better.
    Mr. Jordan. I mean, you are an expert. You were on the task 
force. You were part of this effort when you were in the 
previous Administration. And you are saying in this 
Administration that you cannot rule out the fact that our 
government was lying to us when they told us the vaccinated 
could not get the virus.
    Dr. Birx. I do not know about their discussions that they 
had in the task force, so I cannot tell you that. I can tell 
you, as a family member who had individuals that were 
susceptible, of course, we got everybody vaccinated. But we 
still used layered protection during surges because I knew 
potentially the vaccine immunity would wane like natural 
immunity waned. There was evidence that every four months, 
reinfection was occurring in South Africa.
    Mr. Jordan. Wow. When the government told us that the 
vaccinated could not transmit it, was that a lie or was that a 
guess, or is it the same answer?
    Dr. Birx. I think it was hope that the vaccine would work 
in that way, and that is why I think scientists and public 
health leaders always have to be at the table, being very clear 
about what we know and what we do not know.
    Mr. Jordan. But this is important for the country to know. 
So, when I asked the question, when the government told us that 
the vaccinated could not get it, and I asked you if it was a 
guess or a lie, you said you do not know. You said you think it 
was hope. So, what we do know is it was not the truth. So, they 
were either guessing, lying, or hoping and communicating that 
information to the citizens of this country.
    Dr. Birx. I think they were hoping, but you should know, in 
those original Phase III trials that were done in this country, 
that we only measured for symptomatic disease. So, we were not 
proactively testing everybody in those trials to see if they 
got infected with mild or asymptomatic disease. And so, people 
had to present within the clinical trial.
    Mr. Jordan. I am just----
    Dr. Birx. So, we never had the data that it was going to 
protect against asymptomatic infection.
    Mr. Jordan. I am just struck with the irony. We have got 
government agencies guessing, hoping, or lying with the 
information they are presenting to the American people, and 
this is the same Administration that wants to set up the 
Disinformation Governance Board and wants to talk about 
misinformation. They are the biggest purveyors of 
misinformation, false information, hopeful information, but not 
accurate and true information, which is, again, the frustration 
I think so many of the folks that I get the privilege of 
representing have shared with me.
    When the government downplayed natural immunity, was that a 
guess or a lie?
    Dr. Birx. We are only beginning to--OK, these are 
complicated answers, so I am going to try to be very brief. 
Once you are infected, you are putting immune pressure on that 
virus. We know viruses always mutate, and they mutate to escape 
something, like immune pressure, virologic pressure, and that 
is why you always have to be looking for evidence of 
reinfection so you can understand what epitopes on the virus 
are under extensive immune pressure so that you can map that 
and design next-generation vaccines and next-generation 
therapeutics. You would like to find epitopes that are 
constant, that the virus cannot mutate from, or it loses its 
ability to actually infect and replicate.
    Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Dr. Birx. Mr. Chairman, I just think 
this is amazing that our government, guessing, hoping, or 
lying, one of those. But what we do know is they were not 
telling us the truth, were not telling the American people the 
truth, and it started right with the President of the United 
States, just 11 months ago, when he told us something that was 
absolutely false.
    With that, I will yield back and look forward to a second 
round.
    Chairman Clyburn. Thank you for yielding back. That is 
amazing that the President of the United States just started 
lying 11 months ago.
    With that, the chair yields five minutes to Mr. Foster.
    Mr. Foster. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Dr. Birx, 
for our service and your talent trying to talk sense to 
politicians who think that they know the answer when the truth 
is complicated. You know, trying to explain immune escape to 
someone who comes into the discussion imagining that they 
understand it and, in fact, they are just looking for a viral 
soundbite must be frustrating, and thank you for putting up 
with that.
    You know, as fellow scientists, I know we are both very 
data-oriented, and we rely on accurate and complete data to 
make informed decisions on our work. So, as a scientist myself, 
I really appreciate how important it was to have at least one 
person in the room with a scientific approach, particularly in 
the early days of the pandemic.
    You recently wrote that when you joined the White House in 
March 2020, the country was, quote, ``dangerous behind the 8-
ball when it came to data collection.'' You recounted that data 
collection issues impeded the task force's ability to, quote, 
``understand the scope, scale, and spread of COVID-19 in or 
near real-time'' and that the United States had only, quote, 
``a static, partial, 30,000-foot awareness of the virus.''
    So, in what ways were the efforts to collect and analyze 
data from the emerging coronavirus threat dangerously behind?
    Dr. Birx. A whole series of reasons. One the belief that 
you could track viral infections diseases, particularly 
respiratory disease, by following syndromes. That was our 
pandemic preparedness. We believed that we could track viruses 
through the eyes of people who were infected that had symptoms. 
That is always dangerous because we have always known there are 
asymptomatic viruses and asymptomatic spread, and not everybody 
has magically the same symptoms.
    And so when you base your entire surveillance on syndromic, 
which we had, through your work and your funding, changed Sub-
Saharan Africa, which did the same thing for fever in the 
2000's, but because of your investment, we were diagnosing, no 
matter where you lived, HIV, TB, and malaria. If we had been 
diagnosing RSV, flu, and parainfluenza, we would have had the 
lab capacity at every single clinic and every single hospital, 
no matter if they were community hospitals or large throughput 
hospitals, we would have been able to diagnose flu, and we 
would have seen that there was a circulating virus that did not 
match and any of those laboratory diagnoses, and we would have 
seen it coming.
    Because the CDC believed that they could track syndromes, 
that is why they made tests only for the public health 
laboratories because we only test about 0.001 percent of the 
flu cases to just confirm the strain and its relationship to 
the vaccine. And that is done in public health laboratories.
    And so, I think from the very beginning, CDC believed this 
could be tracked through symptoms only and did not prepare for 
an asymptomatic community spread or develop the data and the 
infrastructure to track that.
    Mr. Foster. Thank you. You know, I am struck that, let's 
see, I guess in the United States, we are sequencing only 0.36 
percent of the confirmed coronavirus cases, and Denmark was 
sequencing more than half of them. And so I am just really 
distressed at how far behind our country has been in just the 
collection and genomic sequencing alone, and I hope that is on 
everyone's list of lessons learned.
    Are those likely to be general-purpose capabilities that 
will be useful if the next pandemic is a bacteria or a fungus, 
and so on? Are there really universal things, or are we going 
to need subspecialized ones for every potential pandemic?
    Dr. Birx. No, and this really gets to the work of the 
committee. So tomorrow, if CMS required that, and community-
acquired infectious diseases were definitively diagnosed, we 
would know precisely who was infected where, with what, and we 
could combat it with advanced tools. We would have better 
antivirals. We would have much better local sequencing. All of 
these things cascade when you require.
    It would be like me in Africa, saying to a patient, ``I 
think you have HIV,'' and treating them for HIV, which we have 
done for flu for the last four decades. That is unacceptable in 
the 21st century. We need to make sure that it is unacceptable, 
and we need to move funding from investments that we are making 
into these investments that are absolutely required.
    Sequencing is critical, and it allows you to see 
transmission trends, and that is why I can tell you today, and 
that is why I went out with the warning for the Southern 
states, B-4 and B-5 was evident in South Africa. Multiple times 
now, we have seen that strain move from South Africa, where 
they are doing sequencing, to Europe, where they are doing 
sequencing, and arriving in the United States. It is 
predictable. It is understood. And we are not utilizing that 
information to act in real-time to combat hospitalizations and 
death through testing, proactive testing of people over 70, and 
providing, proactively, Paxlovid.
    Mr. Foster. Thank you. I yield back.
    Chairman Clyburn. Thank you. The chair now recognizes Dr. 
Miller-Meeks for five minutes.
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. First, I would like to thank you, Dr. 
Birx, for your service and for coming before the committee to 
testify today. Like you, as a physician, as a former director 
of the State Department of Public Health, I am very concerned 
about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the lockdown, and 
school closures that have had on adults and children, but like 
other members here I am also concerned about the loss of trust 
in our institutions that are so valuable.
    And I think that instead of having a committee hearing that 
is geared to trying to lay blame at the feet of one 
Administration, we have ongoing mistakes in response to COVID-
19, and all of those have to be examined, given my time in the 
military, having an after-action report so that we know what we 
did well, what we did not do well, how we could have better-
geared testing so that we learn from this because there will be 
another pandemic, and we do not know if it will be 15 years 
between COVID-19 and H1N1 or if it will be more rapid than 
that, and if it will be overseas or if will come here to our 
shores.
    Early in the pandemic, there was a lot of focus on limiting 
people's interaction with others, which was appropriate. 
However, by the summer of 2020, I would argue that the risks of 
keeping schools closed and how to reopen them as safely as 
possible was, in fact, known, and in Europe and the 
Scandinavian countries, this was already being done. However, 
many Democrat-led states, and blue states, kept their schools 
closed, and the Biden administration listened to the American 
Federation of Teachers, causing, to me, irreparable harm to our 
students' mental, physical, and emotional health. And we have 
seen this in reports, in suicides as young as nine years of 
age.
    In fact, in February 2021, the New York Times found that 86 
percent of pediatric disease experts recommended in-person 
schooling, regardless of vaccination status, and in our State 
of Iowa, we opened schools to in-person learning in August 
2020, without significant repercussions of spread.
    Can you speak to the unintended consequences, mental health 
consequences, of lockdowns and school closures, especially in 
our younger students?
    Dr. Birx. Let me make two comments quickly. We knew, in 
July 2020, the already impact of just having the schools closed 
March, April, May when the head of SAMHSA came to the task 
force and presented the data about a rapid increase in suicidal 
ideation. I sent that to the CDC after she told me that the CDC 
was not utilizing that guidance and would not include it into 
the school guidance. So, I wrote to Dr. Redfield and said, ``I 
really think your team should look at this and at least include 
it in the introduction so that school boards and family members 
can make informed decisions about the whole child.''
    Second, we had universities--and I just want to thank 
presidents of universities who planned through the summer and 
used that time to create an effective plan to reopen. They 
understood that they were institutions of higher education, 
that their students could learn how to protect one another. And 
those universities that opened, that trusted their students, 
that worked on a comprehensive plan, opened successfully, and 
all of them stayed open successfully except for the North 
Carolina system.
    They did that through active testing and making 
interventions and tools available. But most critically--and I 
think you do this in your opening--they made the knowledge 
available to students in real-time about what was happening on 
their college campus so they could change their behaviors as 
necessary. And that is still not being done today at a local 
level to really make sure that every American knows what is 
happening in their community and how to mitigate against the 
virus.
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Correct, and I would say more 
information is always better rather than trying to censor 
information that we do not particularly like. And as a 
physician, I was very forthright in my concern that there would 
be unintended excess deaths from our lockdowns and our, 
closures and missing routine screens.
    Dr. Birx, how much money does the U.S. donate to the WHO 
annually?
    Dr. Birx. Oh, I do not know. There are the direct 
assessments, and then there is the additional funding that we 
provide through a whole series of agencies.
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. It is $500 million. And when did you 
first suspect human-to-human transmission of COVID-19?
    Dr. Birx. In January, when I saw the social reports coming 
out of China.
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. And when did WHO confirm human-to-human 
transmission?
    Dr. Birx. Not until the middle to late January.
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. So, they wasted some time. Did they 
parrot the Chinese propaganda, continuing that there was no 
human-to-human transmission?
    Dr. Birx. You know, what was unfortunate to me is we all 
experienced the SARS outbreak, and there was a level of 
transparency and integration of WHO personnel into China. And 
so we have to investigate why that did not work.
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. So, would you say that the WHO got this 
wrong?
    Dr. Birx. I think very early on, when people should have 
been preparing, and certainly I was preparing Africa for a very 
significant pandemic----
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Did you advise President Trump to 
withdraw from the WHO?
    Dr. Birx. No.
    Mrs. Miller-Meeks. Thank you. I yield back my time.
    Chairman Clyburn. Thank you. The chair now recognizes Mr. 
Raskin for five minutes.
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, thank you for calling this 
important hearing. Dr. Birx, it is a pleasure to see you. I 
want to thank you first for your service in the White House, 
operating in the face of a lot of propaganda and a lot of 
obfuscation from people who wanted to tell the public 
essentially don't trust the scientists, don't trust the 
government, just trust Donald Trump and whatever comes out of 
his mouth.
    The subcommittee has obtained an August 21, 2020, email 
that you sent to senior doctors on the White House Coronavirus 
Task Force, about Dr. Scott Atlas, who was a Fox news 
commentator with no background in the field of infectious 
disease, who was hired somewhat covertly as President Trump's 
pandemic advisor, in July 2020. In this email, excerpted here, 
you wrote to Dr. Fauci, the CDC director, and the FDA 
commissioner to warn of the, quote, ``dangers of Dr. Atlas' 
views on the pandemic.'' You said, quote, ``I don't see the 
President so I don't have a counterbalance opportunity to this 
Atlas dogma.''
    What was the ``Atlas dogma'' you were referring to, and why 
did you think it was so dangerous for America?
    Dr. Birx. Remember, at that time we did not have a vaccine. 
We were still ramping testing. So, at that time we did not 
really have tools to save American lives except for redeliver 
and some breakthroughs in proning. And so Dr. Atlas' view was 
anybody who was not going to have severe disease should be 
allowed to become infected.
    I do believe that he thought that there was long-term 
protection from reinfection, but we did not know that. And it 
was a team. It was not just Dr. Atlas. There was a team of 
physicians and PhDs who strongly believed that the virus was 
innocent to the majority of the American people, and somehow 
you could magically separate the 50 or 60 million vulnerable 
Americans from that infection at a high level.
    Mr. Raskin. Which you have emphasized is really impossible. 
This is the way we live and----
    Dr. Birx. I believe it is impossible, without mitigation.
    Mr. Raskin. Yes.
    Dr. Birx. You could mitigate and it is possible, yes.
    Mr. Raskin. And that is following public health advice and 
strategies and so on. And the idea that the only vulnerable 
people are the ones living in nursing homes is ridiculous, is 
it not?
    Dr. Birx. Correct.
    Mr. Raskin. I mean, how many people live in those homes, 
like 2 million?
    Dr. Birx. 1.5 million.
    Mr. Raskin. So, the idea that those are the only vulnerable 
people in the country is just absurd.
    So, you led the Federal coronavirus response throughout 
your time in the White House. You saw the effects of the 
policies and strategies that Dr. Atlas aggressively promoted, 
even during the surge in late 2020, when death counts were 
reaching record highs, hospitals were full and overflowing, and 
vaccines were not yet widely available.
    Do you have any doubt that Dr. Atlas' tenure in the White 
House undermined America's coronavirus response and jeopardized 
public health?
    Dr. Birx. Absolutely. It did two things. One, it created 
the sense that if Debbie, Bob, Tony, and Steve are saying this, 
and Scott Atlas and these PhDs are saying that, then no one is 
right and no one really knows. So, it created a sense that 
anything could be right and nothing was absolutely right.
    And I think, at that time, we had enough data, and we were 
working with Governors, and what it did is it just maybe shift 
my strategy from this was going to be--not that I gave up on 
pushing back on Scott Atlas, and you can see I did 
continuously, but I went directly to the Governors and the IGA 
staff, Intergovernmental Affairs. And the communications team 
allowed me to directly communicate to local media and to get 
out and meet with Governors and mayors and counterbalance this 
approach.
    Mr. Raskin. Would you agree with me, Doctor, that a 
critical ingredient to a successful public health strategy is 
social cohesion? And if that is the case, did the bringing of 
Dr. Atlas to the White House undermine and work to destroy the 
social cohesion that is necessary for a successful public 
health strategy?
    Dr. Birx. Well, it certainly destroyed any cohesion in the 
response in the White House itself, and I think that then 
became the ability to unravel the response, state by state. I 
think we did as good a job as possible at preventing that at 
the state level. I could not with Florida because he got there 
before I knew he was going.
    Mr. Raskin. Yes, but if cohesion was destroyed in the White 
House, could there be any cohesion in the country?
    Dr. Birx. It makes it much more difficult. But I want to be 
clear. Governors did an extraordinary job. Both Republican 
Governors and Democratic Governors I worked with were focused 
on the health and welfare of their constituencies.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you for your service and testimony. I 
yield back to you, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Clyburn. I thank the gentleman for yielding back. 
The chair now concludes the first round with the recognition of 
Mr. Krishnamoorthi for five minutes.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Hello. Thank you so much, Chair 
Clyburn, and thank you to Dr. Birx.
    On April 23, 2020, during a briefing, then-President Trump 
said, ``I see that disinfectant knocks out the virus in a 
minute, one minute, and is there a way we can do something like 
that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning?'' Do you 
remember that moment when he said that, Dr. Birx?
    Dr. Birx. Vividly.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And I think to people--I am sorry, the 
ABC, you said, regarding President Trump's statements about 
injecting disinfectant, you said, quote, ``I just wanted it to 
be the Twilight Zone and all go away. I mean, I just--I could 
just see everything unraveling in that moment.''
    What do you mean by that?
    Dr. Birx. We had, I thought, developed pretty strong 
consensus throughout the White House that resulted in use of 
data and science to drive our response, resulting in the 15 
days to slow the spread, the 30 days to slow the spread, and 
the carefully selected reopening criteria. And I could see in 
that moment--and again, he was speaking to the DHS scientist, 
and just to make clear how far this went off the rails, we had 
DHS scientists study disinfectant versus sunlight, so that 
children could get out to playgrounds. That was the sole reason 
that study was done because most playgrounds were closed across 
the country. I wanted them open so children could be outside. I 
thought that was critically important. We knew that every 
parent knew what Lysol and Clorox was, and so we thought if we 
compared sunlight and its ability to inactivate the virus, a 
disinfectant, mayors and parents would be confident about their 
children going out.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Let me jump in for a second because 
actually, in that same press conference on April 23, he said, 
``So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it's 
ultraviolet or just a very powerful light.'' I think you said, 
``That hasn't been checked because of the testing,'' referring 
to Dr. Bryant at DHS. And then I said, meaning Trump, 
``Supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you 
can do either through the skin or some other way,'' and I think 
you said you were going to test that too.
    Dr. Birx, what other similar, crazy suggestions did 
President Trump make in private with regard to treating COVID?
    Dr. Birx. I just want to be clear because I am not sure it 
was crystal clear in that dialog. The dialog that you are 
presenting is the dialog that was occurring between President 
Trump and the DHS scientist.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Correct.
    Dr. Birx. That dialog went on for quite some time. The 
scientist was encouraging him and saying, ``We have not looked 
at that. We will look at that,'' and then finally he turned to 
me and I said, ``Not a treatment.''
    I think this illustrates clearly that people were 
communicating with the President dangerous ideas, whether it 
was hydroxychloroquine, whether it was hydroxychloroquine 
combined with azithromycin, which we know has an impact on the 
heart. These were coming into the White House on a daily basis 
from different individuals, and I was not there for the 
majority of those times.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Let me reclaim my time, Dr. Birx. I 
appreciate that, but let me just ask you this. Did anyone 
besides you question these particular treatments within 
internal discussions?
    Dr. Birx. Well, I was not present when that Oval Office 
meeting occurred between Dr. Bryant and the President prior to 
that press conference. There were no physicians in that room at 
the time, and I do not know who was. I know that the physicians 
on the task force continuously pushed back on misinformation 
about treatments, in the task force.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. I understand. You estimated that more 
than 130,000 American lives could have been saved after the 
first wave of the pandemic if President Trump had implemented 
proven mitigation measures. Is that not right?
    Dr. Birx. Through that first year of the pandemic, correct.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. And Dr. Birx, is it accurate to say 
that President Trump's approach, his poor approach, is 
responsible for the deaths of over 100,000 Americans?
    Dr. Birx. I want to make it clear that I think our starting 
strategy should always be no American dies from COVID and no 
American has severe hospitalizations from COVID. And when you 
start with that zero, as we did with HIV, zero new infections, 
zero deaths, you drive programming to uncover structural 
barriers, and you make the changes that are needed on the 
ground to implement tools effectively.
    I think that we were not doing that effectively in that 
first year, mostly related to communication, and I fear today 
that we are still not effectively using our tools across all of 
America, particularly in rural America.
    Mr. Krishnamoorthi. Thank you.
    Chairman Clyburn. Thank you very much. That concludes our 
first round of questions, and to begin the second round the 
chair recognizes himself for five minutes.
    Dr. Birx, I want to begin by asking a question. When we 
saw, in the clips up there, President Trump saying that the 
virus would just go away, was that a hope or a lie?
    Dr. Birx. I don't know. I can't speak to what he was 
thinking. I think a lot of these statements that are made 
concerning the virus often reflect people's hopeful thinking.
    Chairman Clyburn. Thank you very much. I would like to ask 
you about the statement that you made to our staff. During your 
interview with the select subcommittee staff you said that 
during the fall of 2020, the Trump White House officials spent 
time campaigning instead of at the White House and that this 
focus--and I am quoting you here--``took people's time away 
from, and distracted them away from the pandemic,'' end of 
quote.
    What did you observe to lead you to that conclusion?
    Dr. Birx. We had assembled the data and analyses that I 
believed, and I believe to this day, really pointed out where a 
virus was and where it was not, and where we need to apply our 
mitigation efforts. Normally I could find people to have those 
discussions about what was not going optimally, either in the 
task force meetings or in direct communications in the 
hallways. It was very difficult, throughout the summer and the 
fall of 2020, to find those individuals. That is not to say 
that I stopped for one minute interacting with Governors and 
mayors and being on the road, but it is another reason why I 
went on the road, to ensure the messages were getting out 
despite the fact that the White House was distracted about its 
re-election.
    Chairman Clyburn. Thank you. I think we have all been 
noticing, with the current hearings taking place through the 
January 6th Committee, that even after the election White House 
officials were engaged in the President's efforts to overturn 
the will of the voters.
    Dr. Birx, you recently wrote, and I am quoting here, 
``Aggrieved over the election results, some in the West Wing 
appeared willing to engage in a dereliction of duty.'' What did 
you mean by that?
    Dr. Birx. So I optimistically, throughout September and 
October, had created a fall strategy for full implementation. 
Of course, I wanted to start it earlier, but I believed, and I 
was given reason to believe that after the election that 
strategy would be utilized to combat the surge that I knew was 
coming to the United States throughout that fall and winter of 
2020, into 2021.
    That strategy was never fully executed in all of its robust 
and comprehensive approach because the teams were never brought 
back together, or that strategy, what I thought was endorsed by 
the West Wing, was never executed. I believe it is because they 
were distracted by the post-election issues.
    Chairman Clyburn. Thank you very much.
    The chair will recognize Mr. Jordan for five minutes.
    Mr. Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Doctor, should the 
United States be in the World Health Organization?
    Dr. Birx. The United States should both be part of the 
World Health Organization but working with all the member 
states to create the necessary reforms that are required.
    Mr. Jordan. Did you support leaving the World Health 
Organization during the Trump administration?
    Dr. Birx. No.
    Mr. Jordan. OK. I'm looking at Dr. Giroir's transcript from 
his deposition. He said, ``I can tell you from the task force, 
it surprised me, but Dr. Birx was one of the leading advocates 
for pulling out of the WHO.'' So, was he stating something that 
was not true there?
    Dr. Birx. There was a difference between withholding 
funding versus pulling out of the WHO.
    Mr. Jordan. Oh, well, let's ask it that way. Should we be 
giving them, like what, $500 million a year, I think is what we 
do? Should we be giving them American tax dollars to this 
organization that lied to us?
    Dr. Birx. I was supportive of withholding funding based on 
the development of the appropriate reform and to figure out 
precisely what happened during January. Because a week at the 
beginning of----
    Mr. Jordan. Well, we are back in it. Have they done the 
reforms that you were supportive of having them do before we 
gave them the American people's hard-earned tax money?
    Dr. Birx. I was supportive of reform.
    Mr. Jordan. So, you are comfortable now with the Biden 
decision to get back into the World Health Organization and pay 
the money, or not?
    Dr. Birx. I am no longer in government.
    Mr. Jordan. No, I am just asking.
    Dr. Birx. I believe that we should have a clear 
accountability and milestone associated with the funding that 
we give to the WHO out of our assessment.
    Mr. Jordan. And I am asking you if that the case now.
    Dr. Birx. I believe that we should do our assessment. It is 
the dollars above and beyond the assessment, which I think is 
about 80 percent of the dollars, that we should hold directly 
to required performance.
    Mr. Jordan. OK. We will take that. I disagree with 80 
percent of the money that is going there from the United 
States.
    How about gain-of-function research? Should that be 
allowed?
    Dr. Birx. I don't know all the details of gain-of-function 
research. I think the decision has been made, with certain 
countries we do not do gain-of-function research.
    Mr. Jordan. So, definitely limit it with certain countries. 
Should the American tax dollars be used to fund gain-of-
function research?
    Dr. Birx. Well that is a very big blanket statement, and it 
is difficult. I mean, there are----
    Mr. Jordan. Well, there has been legislation introduced in 
the U.S. Congress to say that it should not happen. Some people 
even--we have got some doctors who are members of the U.S. 
Congress who are saying that we should not fund it at all. It 
is just way too darn dangerous. And particularly in light of we 
have seen with this pandemic over the last two years I tend to 
share those views. I am just asking, do you think we should not 
have American tax dollars funding gain-of-function research.
    Dr. Birx. The trouble is there are Class 4 agents that we 
work with that are very deadly, that we have worked for years 
to try to improve countermeasures. That is not solely done 
within the United States, and obviously that would be part of 
gain-of-function because you are making changes to the virus to 
work on countermeasures to control those viruses.
    And so I would hate for our ability to utilize the great 
minds of science in allied countries.
    Mr. Jordan. How about the more basic question. Should we be 
sending American tax dollars to labs in China to do any kind of 
research?
    Dr. Birx. There are critical investigations that we have 
supported in partnership with China, from HIV, and to really 
work on controlling the pandemic in Asia through our work with 
epidemiologists, and CDC in China.
    Mr. Jordan. So you support----
    Dr. Birx. I think it was----
    Mr. Jordan [continuing]. Sending American tax money to 
China to do essentially gain-of-function research or other 
research.
    Dr. Birx. Not gain-of-function research.
    Mr. Jordan. Not gain-of-function research. So, we should 
definitely not do that. That is one place you will draw the 
line.
    Dr. Birx. Correct.
    Mr. Jordan. No tax dollars going to China to do gain-of-
function research.
    Dr. Birx. Correct.
    Mr. Jordan. Yes. But I think that is what happened in this 
situation. I think that is what happened at this lab in Wuhan. 
It was actually gain-of-function research. I believe it came 
from the lab. The idea that it was, you know, a bat to a 
pangolin to a hippopotamus, to people, whatever they say, I 
just do not buy that. But, I mean, who knows.
    The last thing I would say is this. In your testimony, you 
said, being critical of the Biden administration, you said, 
``They shouldn't base decisions about pandemic response on 
polling.'' I mean, one of the things we hear from the other 
side is, ``Oh, the Republicans are interested in the 
politics.'' Well, actually, it is just the opposite. Typical 
thing--Democrats always accuse us of what they are doing. They 
are basing it on polling, that people who trust the science are 
the ones who trust the science. Joe Biden is the one who said 
if you have these vaccinations, you are not going to get COVID. 
That is just a flat-out lie. And according to your testimony, 
the government already knew that was not the case, but he made 
the statement anyway.
    So, we support the science, not the polling, not the lies, 
not trust the government, as the Democrats always want to do. 
We actually want to trust the science and the facts and the 
data versus trusting the government.
    With that, Mr. Chairman, I am over time. Thank you. I yield 
back.
    Dr. Birx. Mr. Chairman, just to clarify, what I said was we 
did not know at that time whether the vaccines would provide 
that protection or not.
    Mr. Jordan. Well, actually, I think what you said is I 
asked you the question when the government told us that the 
vaccinated could not get the virus, I asked you if that was a 
guess or a lie, and you said, ``I don't know.'' That is what 
you told us.
    Dr. Birx. I don't know.
    Mr. Jordan. And then Joe Biden told us last summer--he said 
that at the start of calendar year 2021, and this is July 2021, 
so seven months later, where the President of the United States 
says, ``If you have the vaccinations, you are not going to get 
COVID.'' Totally false statement. That is what you said the 
first round of your testimony.
    Dr. Birx. Just to be very clear, there is a period of time 
that we believe, after immunization and after boosting, that 
people do have protection from infection. That does want, 
though, and wanes rapidly.
    Mr. Jordan. Have people who got the vaccine gotten COVID, 
Dr. Birx?
    Dr. Birx. Yes.
    Mr. Jordan. Yes.
    Chairman Clyburn. I think all of us remember that debate 
very well, and I think we all were following the scientists 
when they continued their research and came to the conclusion 
that we could.
    The chair now recognizes Mr. Raskin for five minutes.
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, thank you. The January 6 
Committee has determined that Donald Trump has knowingly, 
deliberately lied--it is obvious from all of the evidence--
about who won the Presidential election. So, that just seems 
irrefutable to me. He continues to lie about who won the 
Presidential election. So, Mr. Jordan's line of questioning 
makes me wonder when he was out talking fake medical cures, 
like hydroxychloroquine or injecting yourself with bleach, were 
these knowing lies, or was this expression of a hope?
    Dr. Birx. I don't know. My only speculation is that there 
were people, including physicians, telling the President that 
these items would work outside the White House.
    Mr. Raskin. Physicians outside of the White House. People 
would write to him or call him up. What about when he would 
say, ``It is going to disappear,'' by Easter, or it is going to 
disappear. Was that based on any advice you were giving him or 
any of the scientists within the White House or the CDC?
    Dr. Birx. No. Even with that first surge, that estimate of 
100,000 to 240,000 Americans lost, that was only that first 
surge. We had not even modeled out what was going to happen in 
the summer or the fall.
    Mr. Raskin. So, do you have any idea where that came from, 
the idea that it was just going to disappear on its own?
    Dr. Birx. No. I think there were individuals communicating 
with the White House. I think Dr. Atlas was one of them who 
believed that if you infected enough people that you would have 
herd immunity. There was no evidence--in fact, there was 
evidence to the contrary--that there was potential----
    Mr. Raskin. I got you. So, you basically had the equivalent 
of ``team normal'' on the election, on the inside, like you, 
and then people from the outside who were feeding him lies and 
superstition, and that is what he wanted to go with. He wanted 
to run with that.
    Look, you did warn, on November 1, 2020, that we are 
entering the most deadly phase of this pandemic. You were 
extremely concerned at that point. You called for much more 
aggressive action by the Administration. But you just testified 
a moment ago that the President failed to act on it because 
they were interested in the politics of trying to, well, win 
the election first, but then overthrow, subvert the election, 
describe themselves as the winners.
    One of the things that has come out in the January 6 
hearings is the idea that Trump knew that he would get more 
voters showing up on Election Day because he was telling them 
not to use mail-in balloting, his supporters. He was telling 
them to go and vote. And he knew that he would lose very badly 
in the mail-in balloting.
    Do you think that there is any connection between these two 
things, that he wanted to listen to the people who were telling 
him, like Dr. Atlas, just to let COVID-19 run wild because that 
would then increase the number of votes and presumably his 
margin on Election Day, because as they thought, the Democrats 
were not willing to go and vote in person because they were 
afraid of COVID and they would use mail-in balloting?
    Dr. Birx. I was not part of any of those discussions. I 
have no idea. I know, within the task force itself, that was 
never discussed.
    Mr. Raskin. Well, why do you think they did not follow your 
advice, as the lead COVID-19 advisor, to take much more 
aggressive action to avoid the most deadly phase of the 
pandemic yet, and they acted as if you had never even written 
that.
    Dr. Birx. I think that they believed the counterfactual 
points that were never supported by data, from Dr. Atlas and 
his team.
    Mr. Raskin. Is this the period when you think we lost so 
many people--I think you have estimated more than 130,000 
people--or is that cumulative of the irresponsibility of the 
entire response?
    Dr. Birx. That is cumulative for those 11 months. Well, 
actually 12. Well, from January 2020 through January 2021.
    Mr. Raskin. Well, we have lost more than 1 million 
Americans, and had the scientific advice been heeded by the 
Administration how many people might we have saved?
    Dr. Birx. Well, that is where the 130,000 comes from. But I 
want to make it clear to this committee that we have lost 
175,000 Americans since January 2021.
    Mr. Raskin. Yes.
    Dr. Birx. We have to----
    Mr. Raskin. And that is just what you were warning about. 
That is what you were warning about in the memo, right? You 
were saying it is coming, we need to act now.
    Dr. Birx. Yes. But we are still losing Americans today at, 
I find, a very unacceptable rate, when we have the tools to 
prevent it.
    Mr. Raskin. Thank you so much for your service, and I yield 
back, Mr. Chairman.
    Chairman Clyburn. I thank the gentleman for yielding back. 
The chair now recognizes Mr. Foster for five minutes.
    Mr. Foster. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Since the beginning of 
the pandemic I have pushed for greater flexibility and speed in 
the way that we research and authorize treatments, as free as 
possible from political interference and based on a thorough, 
rational, yet as prompt as possible analysis of the risks and 
benefits.
    Dr. Birx, you wrote in your written statement that 
emergency use authorizations helped streamline the regular 
process for evaluating potential coronavirus treatments, and 
unfortunately we also saw that President Trump and members of 
his Administration abused this process by pressuring FDA 
scientists to authorize EUAs for things that were unproven and 
turned out to be ineffective.
    What are the tools that you would like to see to rapidly 
knock down claims of treatments that turn out to be 
ineffective, at the same time maximizing the speed at which we 
identify ones that are truly effective, both for in-hospital 
and on an outpatient basis?
    Dr. Birx. What was frustrating to me is we learned how to 
deal with this with HIV. And what the NIH did is they moved 
research money into the community. Because when you do 
community-centered trials with new agents, and you create that 
community advisory board, you bring everyone in the community 
up to that shared knowledge. And they also can bring products 
forward that they think are warranted to be tested. And so 
there is a dialog, a partnership, between the scientists and 
the communities.
    I think right now, in the next budget, what would be very 
appropriate is we have 20 percent of Americans living in rural 
areas. We are failing in rural areas, and I think we all can 
admit that. We are failing for general population-based 
diseases but also specifically COVID. We should move 20 percent 
of the research dollars to research in our rural areas, to 
really create that partnership between communities and 
physicians, and actually retain physicians and nurse 
practitioners in our rural areas, because they will be able to 
do groundbreaking and critical research that will save their 
communities.
    Mr. Foster. Thank you. I remember sort of halfway through 
the whole sequence there was a very interesting set of clinical 
trials that caught my attention, one out of St. Louis 
University, that were outpatient trials, very simple ones, 
where you tested positive, you went back home to isolate, 
someone knocked on your door and deposited a bag of treatments 
or placebos. You took them, you called in on your cellphone 
every day for a couple of weeks. Very simple things that could 
easily be implemented in rural areas.
    And so it seems like having that capability in place at the 
start of this would have been tremendous.
    Dr. Birx. And there is still the opportunity to do that. We 
can change things overnight with investment of resources and 
human capacity, and you change everything. If you are worried 
about misinformation in the rural areas you combat that by 
working on the ground with communities and community groups. 
You want to combat vaccine hesitancy? We should have been doing 
that under flu. Instead we just measured it every year. We just 
said, you know, Black and brown people in rural areas and white 
people in rural areas do not get vaccinated at the same rate, 
and we treated it like it was a gas price. You know, it meant 
nothing.
    It meant everything, and that kind of behavioral science 
and partnership between the Federal Government, the local 
government, science, and communities is a game-changer. We have 
proved that with HIV. We know that as a roadmap that is 
effective. The community groups that advocate for HIV and work 
among and with communities are enormously successful.
    Mr. Foster. You mentioned in your written testimony the 
need for next-generation COVID vaccines with enhanced 
protection, and you mentioned specifically the need for 
intranasal vaccines with durable IgA mucosal immunity. And it 
is my impression, in just trying and failing to convince people 
to get vaccinated, that there is a big difference between 
asking someone to get injected and having something spritzed up 
their nose. And did we make a mistake in not putting more 
effort into oral vaccines and intranasal vaccines early, 
because we did not anticipate the vaccine hesitancy problem?
    Dr. Birx. Just like testing. We should have anticipated the 
vaccine hesitancy problem because we had clear data going back 
30 years that adult vaccine hesitancy existed, and it was 
evidence-based in flu. We did have an intranasal flu vaccine 
and it was not really studied in behavioral science and 
implementation science to show that it was more acceptable.
    And so there are simple things that we can do today that do 
not cost a lot of money, but engage communities in a real way, 
where you develop trust.
    Mr. Foster. Thank you again for your service, and I yield 
back.
    Chairman Clyburn. I thank the gentleman for yielding back. 
The chair recognizes Ms. Maloney for five minutes.
    Mrs. Maloney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Dr. Birx, I asked you earlier about an email you sent in 
August 2020. You were describing an Oval Office meeting with 
President Trump and Dr. Atlas. You said in that email that Dr. 
Atlas told the President, quote, ``No matter what we do, the 
outcome will be the same,'' end quote. You also wrote that Dr. 
Atlas advised President Trump, quote, ``Testing is very 
overrated,'' end quote, and that, quote, ``case identification 
is bad for the President's re-election,'' end quote. And you 
said that the conclusion of the meeting was, quote, ``Dr. Atlas 
is brilliant and the President will be following his guidance 
now.''
    After that meeting in the fall and winter of 2020, America 
experienced some of the deadliest months of the pandemic. We 
lost the most lives during that period. Dr. Birx, do you 
believe that Dr. Atlas' recommendations, including his focus on 
the upcoming election, had an impact on President Trump's 
pandemic response?
    Dr. Birx. Absolutely, and I believe that went on for months 
prior to that meeting.
    Mrs. Maloney. How so? How did it have the impact?
    Dr. Birx. Because starting in April and May, I felt like 
there were parallel streams of data coming into the White House 
and parallel analyses that I was not privy to. They would show 
up in statements. It was subtle at the beginning, but it was 
very clear when the President did the Axios interview that he 
was holding up graphs that I had never seen or created. And so 
they had to come from someone. Someone had to request them, or 
someone was generating them.
    And I think it gets back to Mr. Raskin's point that it is 
great to have a debate, and it is good to have a scientific 
debate, but you have to agree on the data being the data, and 
you have to fundamentally move from that place. It is why we 
wrote the Governors Reports. We wrote the Governors Reports so 
that the Governors and the White House could be exactly in the 
same place in interpreting what was happening, county by 
county.
    And when you no longer agree on what is actually happening 
in the country, and what needs to be done, and there is not 
consensus on that, then you lose the ability to execute in the 
maximum efficient and effective way.
    Mrs. Maloney. Well, do you think if the President had 
followed your recommendations and your data instead of two sets 
of data and responding in a different way to Dr. Atlas' 
recommendations, do you think it would have saved lives?
    Dr. Birx. Absolutely. And I look forward to all those 
emails and reports. I wrote an analysis of the epidemic daily 
for over 320 days. It clearly shows that the task force and 
everyone in the West Wing was clearly aware of what the 
pandemic was doing and the predictions on what would happen, 
and the solutions to combat this. Because I had something, 
fortunately, that many of the others on the task force did not 
have, is I was grounded in working at the community level, to 
really understand that it is great to talk from a microphone in 
Washington or Atlanta, but you have to see the reality on the 
ground so that you can really support the reality on the ground 
and enforce the ability to really implement those changes that 
would support people thriving and surviving COVID-19.
    And I know a lot of people focus on the million dead, and I 
will just say this very quickly. Hospitalizations in people 
over 70 is not benign. It is not benign. So, let's not just 
say--I mean, hundreds of thousands and millions of people above 
that million who died have significant what we call morbidities 
from being hospitalized. So, this is not a benign illness, and 
hospitalizations in someone who is older is not a benign moment 
in time. We will still see rising, in other, cardiovascular and 
other infectious diseases, in those individuals who have those 
prolonged hospitalizations. And I know everybody focuses on the 
deaths, but I want to make it clear many more Americans have 
suffered really significantly from being hospitalized, and 
another whole group still has long COVID.
    And so, you know, this is not trivial. This virus is not 
trivial and should not just be immediately discarded as we are 
doing fine. We are not doing fine yet.
    Mrs. Maloney. Well, my time is almost up, but Trump himself 
indicated at the time that he wanted less testing. True?
    Dr. Birx. Correct.
    Mrs. Maloney. And you, at the same time, thought we needed 
more testing.
    Dr. Birx. Correct.
    Mrs. Maloney. And you believe more testing would have saved 
lives.
    Dr. Birx. Correct.
    Mrs. Maloney. My time has expired. Thank you. Thank you for 
your service.
    Chairman Clyburn. Thank you very, very much.
    I think that we have exhausted our second round.
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman?
    Chairman Clyburn. Yes, and I yield to the gentleman.
    Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask unanimous 
consent to introduce this excellent staff report called ``The 
Atlas Dogma: The Trump Administration's Embrace of a Dangerous 
and Discredited Herd Immunity Via Mass Infection Strategy,'' 
June 2022.
    Chairman Clyburn. Without objection.
    Chairman Clyburn. As a student of history, I often quote 
George Santayana's admonition that those who cannot remember 
history are condemned to repeat it. But in order to remember 
the past we must first learn what happened. And I want to thank 
you, Dr. Birx, for appearing before us today to help us learn 
the history of the Trump administration's failed response to 
the coronavirus pandemic, so that, hopefully we can avoid any 
repetition.
    We have learned, and will remember, how the Trump 
administration's failures resulted in many thousands of 
preventable American deaths. We have learned, and will 
remember, how politics was prioritized over science. We have 
learned, and hopefully remember, how damaging it is when people 
in positions of authority undermine public trust in those like 
Dr. Birx, with lifesaving medical expertise.
    We cannot change the terrible history of the coronavirus 
pandemic but we can remember it so that no future 
administration is condemned to repeat the Trump 
administration's failed response and its deadly consequences.
    With that, and without objection, all members will have 
five legislative days within which to submit additional written 
questions for the witness to the chair, which will be forwarded 
to the witness for her response.
    This meeting is adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 11:43 a.m., the select subcommittee was 
adjourned.]