Doctor punished for criticizing Trump’s Walter Reed motorcade says ‘I regret nothing’
The doctor removed from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center after criticizing President Donald Trump’s motorcade ride outside the hospital while the president was being treated for COVID-19 says he regrets nothing.
Trump spent three days at Walter Reed in Bethesda, Maryland, in early October after testing positive for the coronavirus. The diagnosis followed now-Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination ceremony at the White House Rose Garden in September, which has since been identified as a superspreader event.
On Oct. 4, the day before he was released from the hospital, Trump posted a video on Twitter saying he was going to “pay a little surprise” to his supporters gathered outside Walter Reed.
Shortly after, videos showed the president waving to cheering supporters as he slowly rode by them in his motorcade of SUVs outside the hospital. Secret Service agents in the car with the president could be seen wearing masks and protective gear. Trump was also wearing a cloth face covering.
The ride quickly drew backlash for putting Secret Service agents and others in danger of contracting the virus and for sending the wrong message to Americans about going out while sick.
Dr. James Phillips, then an an attending physician at Walter Reed and chief of disaster medicine at George Washington University, called the motorcade ride “insanity” in a tweet that has since been deleted.
“Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary Presidential ‘drive-by’ just now has to be quarantined for 14 days,” he tweeted after the motorcade ride. “They might get sick. They may die. For political theater. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater.”
In another deleted tweet, he noted that the car Trump was in is “hermetically sealed” and the risk of COVID-19 transmission “is as high as it gets outside of medical procedures,” saying the “irresponsibility is astounding.”
Phillips was later removed from Walter Reed’s schedule starting in January, sources familiar with the situation told CBS News earlier this month. Walter Reed told CBS it did not remove Phillips from the schedule, which suggests his contractor made the decision to do so.
A spokesperson for George Washington University School of Medicine, told CBS News Dr. Phillips is still on staff at the university hospital.
Phillips tweeted late Sunday he had just finished his last shift at Walter Reed and that he’s “honored to have worked there.”
“I stand by my words, and I regret nothing,” he tweeted.
White House spokesperson Judd Deere previously defended the drive by to The Associated Press, saying it “was cleared by the medical team as safe to do.”
But Phillips was one of many medical professionals who criticized Trump’s motorcade ride as unsafe.
“In the hospital when we go into close contact with a COVID patient we dress in full PPE: Gown, gloves, N95, eye protection, hat. This is the height of irresponsibility,” Dr. Jonathan Reiner, director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at The George Washington University Hospital, tweeted Oct. 4.
This story was originally published December 28, 2020 at 1:34 PM with the headline "Doctor punished for criticizing Trump’s Walter Reed motorcade says ‘I regret nothing’."
