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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums'It's like every red flag': Trump-ordered HHS ad blitz raises alarms
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 immediate surge public advertising and awareness campaign," is expected to lean heavily on video interviews between administration officials and celebrities, who will discuss aspects of the coronavirus outbreak and address the Trump administration's response to the crisis, according to six individuals with knowledge of the campaign who described its workings to POLITICO.
Senior administration officials have already recorded interviews with celebrities like actor Dennis Quaid and singer CeCe Winans, and the Health and Human Services Department also has pursued television host Dr. Mehmet Oz and musician Garth Brooks for roles in the campaign.
The public awareness campaign, which HHS is seeking to start airing before Election Day on Nov. 3, was largely conceived and organized by Michael Caputo, the health department's top spokesperson who took medical leave last week and announced on Thursday that he had been diagnosed with cancer. Caputo, who has no medical or scientific background, claimed in a Facebook video on Sept. 13 that the campaign was "demanded of me by the president of the United States. Personally."
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/25/trump-hhs-ads-coronavirus-421957
rzemanfl
(29,557 posts)woodsprite
(11,914 posts)Gothmog
(145,225 posts)BGBD
(3,282 posts)would anyone recognize Dennis Quiad or Garth Brooks if they sat beside them in a restaurant?
Garth Brooks hasn't released a relevant record in 25 years
StarryNite
(9,444 posts)who will do anything for a gig.
crickets
(25,976 posts)It would have saved lives. This is just campaigning, and getting taxpayers to foot the bill. Disgusting.
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(107,972 posts)Instead it's spent on Trump propaganda.