Tag Archives: Michael Caputo

Politico reports: A top Trump appointee repeatedly urged top health officials to adopt a “herd immunity” approach to Covid-19 and allow millions of Americans to be infected by the virus, according to internal emails obtained by the House Oversight Committee and shared with POLITICO. “There is no other way, we need to establish herd, and it only comes about allowing …

Politico reports: The Health and Human Services department has scrapped a planned ad campaign featuring celebrities discussing Covid-19, a senior HHS official told a congressional oversight panel in a letter shared with POLITICO. The abandoned $15 million contract with Atlas Research, part of a larger $300 million taxpayer-funded campaign aimed at “defeating despair” over the pandemic, was conceived by a …

The Washington Post reports: The documents show that Trump political appointees and the contractors they hired also vetted celebrities for the public health campaign based on whether they had ever criticized the president, or supported former president Barack Obama, gay rights or same-sex marriage. Of at least 274 celebrities under consideration, only 10 appear to have been approved, according to …

Politico reports: The Trump appointee who steered a $300 million taxpayer-funded ad campaign to “defeat despair” about the coronavirus privately pitched a different theme last month: “Helping the President will Help the Country.” That proposal, which came in a meeting between Trump administration officials and campaign contractors, is among documents obtained by the House Oversight Committee that further illustrate how …

Slate reports: In order to encourage Americans to get vaccinated, a federal health agency had an idea: Get Santa Claus involved. The Department of Health and Human Services had planned to devote $250 million for an advertising campaign, part of which involved Santa Claus performers promoting COVID-19 vaccination, reports the Wall Street Journal. In exchange, they would get access to …

Politico reports: They made a list of more than 30 celebrities including Justin Timberlake, Taylor Swift and Billy Joel to appear in their ad campaign to “inspire hope” about coronavirus, but they ended up with only Dennis Quaid, CeCe Winans and Hasidic singer Shulem Lemmer. The health department’s $300 million-plus, taxpayer-funded vehicle to boost confidence in President Donald Trump’s response …

The Hollywood Reporter reports: Dennis Quaid and gospel singer CeCe Winans have each taken to social media to clarify the non-political intent of participating in interviews related to COVID-19 and the ongoing pandemic. According to a report from Politico on Friday, an ad was ordered by President Trump and conceived partly by former Department of Health and Human Services official …

Politico reports: The health department is moving quickly on a highly unusual advertising campaign to “defeat despair” about the coronavirus, a $300 million-plus effort that was shaped by a political appointee close to President Donald Trump and executed in part by close allies of the official, using taxpayer funds. The ad blitz, described in some budget documents as the “Covid-19 …

The Buffalo News reports: Michael R. Caputo, the East Aurora political consultant at the center of controversy over the Trump administration’s Covid-19 messaging, has been diagnosed with cancer. Assemblyman David J. DiPietro, R-East Aurora, acting as Caputo’s spokesman, said Thursday that the HHS spokesman on leave from his assistant secretary post has “squamous cell carcinoma, a metastatic head and neck …

“I’m not going to resign. The fact of the matter is, there are people out there, especially people who hate the president, who are trying to paint a picture that I am mentally ill because I did this Facebook Live. “I do those Facebook Live’s very often and take questions about COVID. I had just gotten a health scare, to …

NBC News reports: The top spokesman for the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services is taking a leave of absence, the agency announced Wednesday, days after he promoted dangerous conspiracy theories during a Facebook Live video. In the video, Caputo, who is HHS’ assistant secretary for public affairs, charged that scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention …

Politico reports: Top HHS spokesperson Michael Caputo called an emergency staff meeting on Tuesday to apologize for leveling a series of false accusations on Facebook Live over the weekend, according to three people with knowledge of the meeting. Caputo told staffers that his remarks — which included unfounded allegations the Centers for Disease Control was harboring a “resistance unit” — …

Fox News reports: The top spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services deleted his Twitter in the aftermath of a late-night rant in which he suggested tear gassing journalists and battled with other users on the social media platform. Michael Caputo, who was using his verified Twitter account, commented “gas all of them” in response to a post …

Politico reports: Since Michael Caputo, a former Trump campaign official with no medical or scientific background, was installed in April as the health department’s new spokesperson, there have been substantial efforts to align the reports with Trump’s statements, including the president’s claims that fears about the outbreak are overstated, or stop the reports altogether. Caputo and his team have attempted …

Politico reports: A Trump administration appointee at the Department of Health and Human Services is trying to prevent Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, from speaking about the risks that coronavirus poses to children. Emails obtained by POLITICO show Paul Alexander — a senior adviser to Michael Caputo, HHS’s assistant secretary for public affairs — instructing press officers …

Media Matters reports: On his now-defunct show Still Standing with Michael Caputo, the current HHS spokesperson pushed the debunked conspiracy theory that the coronavirus was invented “in a bioweapons facility in Wuhan,” used racist terms to refer to the virus, and said Democrats are calculating how long they can “actually keep the coronavirus concern ball in the air” in order …

Former Trump aide and Fox News regular Michael Caputo this afternoon tweeted a laughable lie, fabricating a Nate Silver quote that appears nowhere in the article he linked. Here’s a bit from Caputo’s Wikipedia page: Caputo moved to Russia in 1994 after the fall of the Soviet Union, and was an adviser to Boris Yeltsin and helped elect Yeltsin to …

The Daily Beast reports: Less than 24 hours after the Roseanne reboot was canceled, former Trump campaign aide Michael Caputo began plotting ways to get her back on air. Caputo is the chief marketing officer of an online streaming TV startup called Bond, which aims to fund film and television programming through “crowd-investing.” He told The Daily Beast that he …

The Associated Press reports: The Trump presidential campaign has spent almost $1 million on legal fees since the beginning of the year, according to a campaign finance report filed Saturday with the Federal Election Commission. That includes a $50,000 charge for the law firm of Alan Futerfas, who is representing Trump Jr. The payment was made nearly two weeks before …

The New York Daily News reports: A trio of conservative firebrands with ties to President Trump will go on trial Wednesday for allegedly smearing a Libertarian candidate for governor as a sexual predator. The defendants are notorious political trickster Roger Stone, bombastic Buffalo businessman Carl Paladino and political talk show host Michael Caputo. Stone and Caputo’s names have reportedly been …