I'm pleased to welcome to our White House team a world-renowned global health

official and a physician. She will be my right arm through this effort and I'm

grateful that Ambassador Deborah Birx also Dr. Deborah Birx will be on our team.

In March of 2020, then Vice President Mike Pence welcomed Dr. Deborah Birx

as the White House coronavirus response coordinator. For decades, Dr. Birx had

worked in public service as a renowned scientist and most recently as global

AIDS ambassador, but she had little experience working inside the White House.

It was Dr. Birx who famously sat dumbfounded next to then President Donald Trump in

a press conference as he raised the possibility of injecting disinfectant as a

treatment for the coronavirus. Her data-driven approach to the pandemic

provided a critical voice in the Trump administration, but she also faced

resistance and criticism from both sides of the aisle. Here's House Speaker Nancy

Pelosi back in August. I don't have confidence in anyone who stands there while the

president says swallow-ly, so I'm just going to cure your virus. I think that

she has enabled. Around that same time it was the New York Times that reported

Dr. Birx had painted an overly optimistic view of the pandemic. Dr. Birx

responded to both accusations on CNN soon after that. I have tremendous respect

for the Speaker. It was unfortunate that New York Times wrote this article

without speaking to me. I have never been called polyannish or non-scientific or

non-data-driven and I will stake my 40-year career on those fundamental

principles of utilizing data to really implement better programs to save more

lives. In medicine it is the autopsy that allows us to look back at what went

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