After Bragging About RT Interview, Atlas Apologizes, Says He Didn’t Know Outlet Is A Foreign Agent

WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 12: White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Scott Atlas, speaks during a TV interview with OAN on October 12, 2020 in Washington, DC (Photo by Oliver Contreras/For The Washington Post)
WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 12: White House coronavirus adviser Dr. Scott Atlas, speaks during a TV interview with OAN on October 12, 2020 in Washington, DC (Photo by Oliver Contreras/For The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Start your day with TPM.
Sign up for the Morning Memo newsletter

A day after warning that people had best “use a mask to cover your eyes and ears” if they can’t handle the “truth” contained in his interview with RT, White House adviser Scott Atlas is now claiming that he didn’t know the Russian propaganda outlet is a registered foreign agent.

The Kremlin-backed TV network registered as a foreign agent with the Justice Department back in 2017.

Atlas’ Sunday tone is very different from the one he struck when sharing the interview in a now-deleted tweet.

“New interview,” he wrote Saturday. “Lockdown, facts, frauds … if you can’t handle truth, use a mask to cover your eyes and ears,” he said, adding #FactsMatter and #LockdownsKill.

During the interview itself, Atlas — who is neither an epidemiologist nor a practicing doctor of any kind — pushed his typically specious COVID-19 claims.

“The lockdowns will go down as an epic failure of public policy,” Atlas said. “The argument is undeniable. The lockdowns are killing people.”

He went on to attribute some of the 231,000 American COVID-19 deaths to the lockdown, which real doctors support to slow the spread of the infection.

Atlas caught President Donald Trump’s eye in the first place due to his wildly wrong and over-optimistic COVID-19 predictions, predicting that the disease would peak in April and that the curve had been flattened in May. He has argued a line popular with Trump, that the cure is worse than the disease, and advocated for “herd immunity.”

He made many of those arguments on Fox News, and soon after became an adviser to members of the White House coronavirus task force.

He has whipped up a significant following for his medical bunk, despite being called “an outlier” by the nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Latest News

Notable Replies

  1. He doesn’t know COVID has killed almost a quarter of a million people.
    He doesn’t know RT is a foreign agent.

    HE NEEDS TO GO WAY BACK AND SIT DOWN

  2. Dickhead.

    Oh, yeah, and Uncle Pootie is making masks mandatory—whaddya say about that, Scottie?

  3. I remember unbelievable arguments on DemocraticUnderground.com about whether or not RT was a Russian propaganda outlet.

    Now I consider it a badge of honor to have been kicked out of that place.

    Atlas is a fool.

  4. He’s a toad and a liar and knows exactly how lucky he’s been to run into Trump and inducted into liars anonymous…

Continue the discussion at forums.talkingpointsmemo.com

130 more replies

Participants

Avatar for ajm Avatar for josephebacon Avatar for richardinjax Avatar for littlegirlblue Avatar for cervantes Avatar for cvilledem Avatar for joelopines Avatar for lastroth Avatar for stradivarius50t3 Avatar for left_in_washington_state Avatar for careysub Avatar for darrtown Avatar for bodie1 Avatar for ljb860 Avatar for birdford Avatar for halfachievedharfleur Avatar for the_loan_arranger Avatar for occamscoin Avatar for dogmaalsocatma Avatar for mtw Avatar for rockitttla Avatar for randome Avatar for Hatmama Avatar for ClutchCargo

Continue Discussion
Masthead Masthead
Founder & Editor-in-Chief:
Executive Editor:
Managing Editor:
Deputy Editor:
Editor at Large:
General Counsel:
Publisher:
Head of Product:
Director of Technology:
Associate Publisher:
Front End Developer:
Senior Designer: