Washington — President Trump will hold a news conference Tuesday as negotiations on Capitol Hill over the fourth phase of the federal coronavirus response continue. Republicans have unveiled their proposal to address the economic fallout from the pandemic.
Looming over lawmakers is the expiration of enhanced unemployment benefits for roughly 30 million Americans who lost their jobs amid the pandemic. Whether to extend these benefits and at what level has already emerged as a key sticking point in talks between Republicans and Democrats.
At the White House, meanwhile, Mr. Trump returned to promoting the drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the coronavirus and amplified criticisms of Dr. Anthony Fauci on Twitter on Monday.
How to watch President Trump’s News Conference
What: President Trump holds a news conference
Date: Tuesday, July 28
Time: 5 p.m. ET
Location: The White House, Washington, D.C.
Online stream: Live on CBSN — in the player above and on your mobile or streaming device
But the president’s support for the antimalarial drug contrasts with a study published by the New England Journal of Medicine last month, which found that hydroxychloroquine was not effective in preventing illness from the coronavirus. Fauci, too, has stressed that clinical trials examining the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine have shown it is not effective in treating COVID-19.
While Mr. Trump has said he gets along with Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the post he retweeted late Monday claimed the country’s leading infectious disease expert has “misled the American public” on matters including hydroxychloroquine.
Mr. Trump also shared tweets featuring a video from a group called “America’s Frontline Doctors” that promoted hydroxychloroquine as a “cure” for the coronavirus. The video, however, was scrubbed from social media sites because it shared misinformation about COVID-19.
In an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Tuesday, Fauci responded to the accusation he has been deceiving Americans.
“I have not been misleading the American public under any circumstances,” he said.
Fauci said he doesn’t read Twitter and reiterated his commitment to his work.
“We’re in the middle of a crisis with regard to an epidemic, a pandemic,” he said. “This is what I do. This is what I’ve been trained for my entire professional life, and I’ll continue to do it.”