The COVID-19 Misinformation Campaign

Extremism + Misinformation = A Deadly Cocktail

Deadly Misinformation

Misinformation, twisting of the facts, and outright lies are the hallmarks of the GOP these days. Nowhere was this more evident in the misinformation spread during the deadly COVID-19 pandemic under the Trump administration. It started right from the beginning, as he was worried about how it would, of course, affect his reelection chances. It's sometimes tough to figure out just exactly which 'Big Lie' was the biggest, the denial and downplaying of COVID-19 or that the election was stolen from Trump. But why quibble. Both Big Lies have been a disaster for this nation.

COVID-19 Death Toll As Of This Writing (4/1/2022)

United States 1,007,320

Worldwide 6,168,172

The Trump administration ignored warnings and spread misinformation, making the pandemic worse.

Real leaders do not ignore the facts, malign the science, and misinform or mislead the public during a time of a public health crisis. Yet that is exactly what Donald Trump and his administration did with COVID-19. Over his four years in office, The Washington Post tracked 30,573 misleading claims made by Donald Trump. The lies he told and misinformation he spread about COVID-19 were not just dangerous; they were deadly. Trump endangered the lives of millions of Americans and compromised the public health (see below).

Putting Vice President Mike Pence in charge of an emerging pandemic was the first mistake. Pence's handling of an AIDS outbreak in Indiana made the situation worse instead of better. Rather than taking action on a needle exchange program, he decided to "pray on it." As late as the dawn of the new millennium (hint: 2000), Pence was saying that smoking doesn't kill people. He may have vindicated himself slightly by adding Dr. Deborah Birx to the task force, but then he added Larry Kudlow, Trump's economic advisor who could not even get that right most of the time.


Misleading the People and Endangering the Public Health

Donald Trump and his administration ignored all the warnings, slandered the science, elevated medical misinformation specialists, and outright lied to the public on their way to mishandling the most dangerous and challenging public health crisis in our time.

We Knew Nothing

‘Nobody knew there would be a pandemic or epidemic of this proportion’


This is patently false. In fact, Obama's national security council left behind a 69-page playbook after the 2016 Ebola outbreak. The report offered direction on tracking the spread of a new virus, ensuring effective testing, and stockpiling necessary medical items. The Trump administration ignored it. One anonymous official said it was "thrown on to a shelf." This has been reported in Politico, where you can also read the 69-page report.

Wishful Thinking

‘It’s going to disappear. One day it’s like a miracle – it will disappear’


Dr. Trump strikes again. He also postulated that the warmer weather would result in fewer cases. He had no problem spreading this made-up misinformation to the general public even though none of these statements is supported by science or by any of the public health officials in his own administration and on the task force. In fact, Anthony Fauci, the world's leading expert on infectious diseases, was saying the opposite. He warned that “as the next week or two or three go by, we’re going to see a lot more community-related cases.”  Fauci was right, and here we are in 2022 and we've topped one million deaths in the U.S.

More Wishful Bull

Americans will have access to 'vaccines, I think, relatively soon'

Trump's own HHS secretary, Alex Azar, contradicted him telling him he'd have vaccines for testing soon. This was confirmed by Anthony Fauci who pointed out that clinical trials were standard operating procedure, and that a vaccine was likely a year to 18 months away. This also flies in the face of the right-wing allegations that the vaccines were not tested. The pharmaceutical industry is not only highly regulated; drugs are rigorously tested. That's what clinical trials are for. Unfortunately, science is not this nation's strong suit thanks, in large part, to the demonization of the right.

Outright Lie #1

'I've always known this is a real - this is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic. I've always viewed it as very serious.'

And I don't know how anyone could take this statement seriously. From the beginning Donald Trump downplayed it. If he took it seriously, he would have looked at the report left behind by the national security council and taken the recommended actions. He would not have spread false information about masks and social distancing or told the American people that COVID-19 would soon disappear. His lies during this pandemic put the American public at great risk and compromised the public health.

Outright Lie #2

The U.S. has “among the lowest case-fatality rates of any major country anywhere in the world.”

When Trump told this beauty back on August 27, 2020, South Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia and India all had lower case-fatality rates than the U.S. The U.S. statistics were actually in the middle of the rankings overall, and also among the 20 nations most hard hit by COVID-19. The truth, however, is not appreciated by the Trump administration, the right wing or its adherents, as we have seen throughout this disaster.

Blame Obama

The Trump administration inherited an 'obsolete' test for COVID-19

The Trump administration didn't inherit any test for the coronavirus, good or bad. And that's because COVID-19 was not here during the Obama administration. It's impossible to create a test for something that doesn't exist, just as it is impossible to create a vaccine for a virus that doesn't exist. As we have all learned from four years of lies, everybody but Donald Trump is to blame for his misfortunes, his hideous dictates, and his poor handling of a public health crisis.

Check Out the Trump Coronavirus Interactive Timeline

The Center for American Progress (CAP) has produced an interactive timeline of the Trump administration's handling (actually, the mishandling) of the COVID-19 pandemic. They cover every lie, every step the Trump administration did and didn't take, every time the administration ignored warnings, and all the false promises made to the American people by Donald Trump. All you need to do is click the button below to get there.

COVID-19 Trump Timeline

The Trump administration wasn't alone; it had plenty of enablers and it enabled plenty of liars

The right wing feeds off each other. They gain strength from each other's bigotry, hatred, misinformation, misogyny and a host of other charming traits. The Trump administration misled the public about COVID-19 for political purposes. Trump was worried about the optics, and what it would mean for his reelection chances. Little did he know that his mishandling of the pandemic would contribute to his undoing. Narcissists, however, rarely have that level of insight. He was so worried about his polling numbers,

that he wanted to send COVID-infected Americans being brought home from Asia to Guantanamo. Trump in office during a pandemic led to the unholy matrimony of the anti-vax movement and the far right in America. To be sure, there have always been some vaccine hesitant people here, as far back as the Influenza epidemic of 1918. The problem is compounded exponentially if you have an opportunist and narcissist in office empowering these people. The other compounding problem is a thing called social media.


The Anti-Vaxx Juggernaut

All of the construct surrounding COVID-19 vaccines came from the right wing. This is not to say that any vaccine is 100% without adverse reactions. That's a childish belief. There is no medication that is 100% safe for 100% of the human race 100% of the time. It has always been that way. However, the American people love conspiracies. We were taken by them even before COVID-19. There have always been vaccine-hesistant people, and the right wing knew that and amplified their fears for their own gain, both political and financial. You can find the most egregious of these conspiracy theorists in this publication from the Center for Countering Digital Hate. Visit their site using the button below. And you can also download this document below.

Visit CCDH Download Report

Endangering The Public Health for Publicity and Profit

By the time COVID-19 rolled around, the right wing had already ripened the country for misinformation and conspiracy theories. The general mistrust of government, science, the news media, and other sources was already well underway. They have been working on this for decades. This is not a new phenomenon. Their labors, however, became much easier in the wake of social media, the American poison pill. Can it be a venue for good? Yes. It can be. But much more often it's a venue for charlatans, opportunists, and propagandists. And the American public has long given up vetting its sources. The meme is now king on social media. If it's in a four-inch square block in bold and colorful print, it must be the truth. Just share it.


Medical Freedom, like the new buzz phrase, Parental Rights (which we discuss later) is a right-wing invented talking point. Nobody's medical freedom is being abridged in this nation. Suddenly, getting kids a vaccine for school is a problem. It has been that way since 1977. I put two kids through school, having to show proof that not only were their vaccines up to date, but that they had a physical before returning every September. School nurses exist for a reason. It's called PUBLIC HEALTH, and it has been around for decades. Hey, people can even go to college and get an actual degree in Public Health.


In the wake of COVID-19, however, with a pathological liar and opportunist as leader of the free world downplaying the pandemic and offering up a cocktail of unproven remedies, along with right-wing anti-vaxxers and snake oil salesmen jumping on the bandwagon both for celebrity status and profit, we've reached a whole new level of stupidity.


While the Center for Countering Digital Hate (see above) has a great report featuring the dozen worst anti-vaxxers who have garnered the most social media attention, we've featured some other individuals and organizations below that we've been following.

Disinformation Dozen

Disinformation Dozen Report

The following pack of vipers has been highlighted in the CCDH Disinformation Dozen report:

1. Joseph Mercola

2. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

3. Ty and Charlene Bollinger

4. Sherri Tenpenny

5. Rizza Islam

6. Rashid Buttar

7. Erin Elizabeth

8. Sayer Ji

9. Kelly Brogan

10. Christiane Northrup

11. Ben Tapper

12. Kevin Jenkins

You can download the report above or access it here on our document site. There is an excellent article from McGill University here also.

Andrew Wakefield

Disgraced Doctor

Sometimes Andrew Wakefield gets lost in the shuffle, but his egregious falsification of data pertaining to the MMR vaccine causing autism was instrumental in creating vaccine hesitancy here and in the UK, where he worked. He wasn't stripped of his medical license in the UK because he was a "truther" about the vaccine. He was stripped of his medical license because he falsified data and lied. In addition, none of his supposed 'science' could be replicated in subsequent studies.


Wakefield also had financial conflicts of interest that led him to do that, like the fact that he was already working for an attorney who was paying him to generate data for an MMR class action lawsuit. Wakefield also lied about the children who were in his study, saying they were patients at his hospital. They, in fact, were sent to Wakefield by the same attorney.  They were not being treated at his hospital. It should also be noted that Wakefield had his own patent on a measles vaccine. Wakefield was fully exposed by an investigative journalist named Brian Deer. You can read all about this case here.

Judy Mikovits

Disgraced Researcher

Here's another charlatan whose star has faded a bit in the morass of medical misinformation found on social media. Her film, Plandemic, was one of the most egregious undertakings at a time when COVID-19 was bursting onto the scene. I've watched this more than once, and Mikovits provides not one iota of factual information to back up her misinformation and allegations about both the pandemic and Dr. Anthony Fauci.


Her prediction that 50 million would die from the first injection of the COVID-19 vaccine is also bunk. The writing should have been on the wall when she produced junk science linking a relatively obscure mouse virus to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). Many who suffered from this illness bought in immediately as Mikovits gave them hope that a treatment might be on the horizon. Then it all came crashing down in dramatic form as Science magazine retracted her paper. Then, researchers in nine different labs attempted to replicate her findings without success, including Dr. Ian Lipkin, one of the world's most renown virus hunters. Judy Mikovits is most deserving of her fall from grace. 

Thomas Renz

Bottom Feeding Attorney

Joining RFK Jr. on the bottom-feeder portion of vaccine and mandate hysteria is Thomas Renz and who became a bona fide attorney just before COVID-19 hit after five attempts at passing the bar. He has little experience in litigation but has managed to raise his profile with legal filings against mask mandates and lockdowns. He is also another proponent of the 'vaccine is more dangerous than the illness lies'. One trip through his website tells the story. I've personally hired several attorneys in my lifetime for a variety of reasons. This is not what a legitimate attorney's website looks like.


First of all, why would you have to "Donate" to a working attorney? Renz is an anti-vax activist masquerading as an attorney. His client? America's Frontline Doctors is a sham operation (we cover them next). His vaccine experts? Candace Owens, shown prominently on the front page of his website, and Steve Bannon, white supremacist and fascist. Like so many others out there, he produces absolutely no viable proof of his allegations. But he doesn't really need to in America today.

America's Frontline Doctors

On the Frontline of Propaganda

Only one doctor in America's Frontline Doctors has been on the frontline of anything. Simone Gold is a legitimate doctor, but she's also a right-wing operative whose group has been promoted and funded by the Tea Party Patriots and its foundation. This group is an affront to the many doctors and nurses who actually have been on the frontline fighting COVID-19. One look at their website shows exactly what this group is all about. It isn't there to impart legitimate medical information on COVID-19. Instead, it's about the infamous buzz words of the last two years: Medical Freedom. They actually are virulent spreaders of medical misinformation. Simone Gold is also a Trump supporter and an insurrectionist who was inside the Capitol on January 6. That speaks volumes.


Another 'frontline doctor' touted by Donald Trump is Stella Immanuel who claims to have cured many people of COVID-19 with hydroxychloroquine. Yet, she can provide no proof or records of having ever done so. This is the doctor elevated by Trump as he sought to discredit a legitimate doctor in Anthony Fauci, a man who has dedicated his life to the study of infectious disease and is the world's preeminent expert. By the way, Dr. Stella Immanuel will also save your soul in addition to curing you of COVID-19 with snake oil.   

United Medical Freedom SuperPAC

Right-Wing Political Group

There are telltale signs of right-wing extremism, and the United Medical Freedom SuperPAC has several. Their allegiance to God is the first. The American flag symbolism is another (you see that with America's Frontline Doctors also). So is the blather about protecting your medical freedom, a dead giveaway. The site also boasts its "Constitutional Sheriff" to lend credibility to its freedom fighting image. Their Constitutional Sheriff, Richard Mack, is a right-wing extremist who was a board member of the Oath Keepers. In fact, the entire Constitutional Sheriff concept has roots in white supremacy.


Who else adorns this website? The usual anti-vax suspects: RFK Jr. and Del Bigtree are their "charities," which means they pump money into medical misinformation. Then, there are the opportunists who run the site, Ty and Charlene Bollinger, neither of whom have any experience in medicine or health. He has a degree in finance and is a former bodybuilder. On a separate site called The Truth About Cancer, Bollinger gives out a plethora of misinformation about how to fight cancer, as well as offering up bogus cures and hours of videos featuring "experts" to guide you, all at premium prices. They branched out their vast grifters empire into vaccines after COVID-19 hit. Mike Adams, also known as The Health Ranger, is also featured on the site. He has a vast reach. He's a bona fide "influencer" which is very important to becoming successful (and wealthy) on social media, and he has built himself a virtual empire not only of medical misinformation, but also outrageous conspiracy theories. The Health Ranger will be only too happy to fleece you as well if you go to his store.

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