One of the president’s top health goons made a cringeworthy comment about a CNN host’s appearance while hawking a new Trump administration rollout.
Dr. Mehmet Oz made CNN’s anchor Pamela Brown visibly uncomfortable by telling her that she doesn’t “need” Ozempic because she “looks like a gazelle.” The awkward exchange happened on Friday’s The Situation Room.
Oz, the Administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, was telling Wolf Blitzer about TrumpRx, a website the Trump administration launched this week that claims to help consumers find discounts on various medications. As an example, Oz, 65, brought up GLP-1 weight loss drugs.
Unprompted, he looked at Brown, Blitzer’s 42-year-old co-host, and said, “Now, Pam looks like a gazelle. You probably don‘t need it.”
Brown raised her eyebrows and shook her head as Oz continued praising the administration’s new initiative.
The comment comes days after President Donald Trump, 79, was widely criticized for interrupting CNN reporter Kaitlin Collins to harp at her for not smiling. Collins was in the midst of asking Trump about his thousands of appearances in the Epstein files at the time.
Before joining the Trump administration, Oz built a television career promoting dubious weight loss tips. Since becoming the CMS administrator, he has focused on chastising Americans, television hosts, and federal employees about their eating habits.
In August, he told Medicaid recipients to “stop eating cake.”
In November, he appeared on Fox News and berated the hosts for having unhealthy chips in the green room.
During the holiday season, he sent an email to CMS employees, urging them to avoid “double fisting” snacks and reminding them that they didn’t “need to try every cookie.”
But on Friday, CNN’s Brown avoided Oz’s critical eye and instead earned a comparison to a species of antelope.
CNN declined to comment on Oz’s Situation Room appearance. Representatives for Oz did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment.
Trump, 79, has used GLP-1 drugs as a primary example when he bemoans the price of medicine in the United States. For nearly a year, he has repeated a story about his unnamed overweight businessman buddy who takes “the fat shot” but is frustrated that the drug is so expensive in the States.
The story ends with Trump saying something must be done about the price discrepancy, then telling his fat friend that the “shot” clearly isn’t working on him.
Trump again brought up the dramatic price discrepancy of GLP-1 drugs when announcing the launch of TrumpRX on Thursday.
He announced that Novo Nordisk, the makers of the GLP-1 drug Wegovy, had reduced the drug’s price from $1,300 to $199.
“Nobody can even believe it. A 578 percent difference,” he said.
A 578 percent reduction from $1,300 would mean the drug would cost negative $6,214. The price drop is actually 85 percent.
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