Trump defends hydroxychloroquine use by claiming NIH-funded study was actually 'phony'

President Trump is creating his own facts to defend taking hydroxychloroquine.

Trump said Monday that he is taking the potentially toxic malaria drug as a "preventative" measure against COVID-19, though a note from Trump's doctor didn't actually say he was doing so. Still, Trump doubled down on the drug on Tuesday, declaring that a government-funded study that showed hydroxychloroquine's dangers was actually "false" and "phony."

"That was a false study, where they gave it to very sick people," Trump said, seemingly talking about research that showed hundreds of COVID-19 patients at VA hospitals not only didn't see improvement after taking hydroxychloroquine, but also ended up with a higher death rate. "It was given by obviously not friends of the administration," Trump said of the research funded by the National Institutes of Health and the University of Virginia.

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Dr. Eric Fiegl-Ding, an epidemiologist at Harvard University, declared in a tweet that Trump's criticism of the study was actually "100% HORSE SH*T." And David Shulkin, the former secretary of veterans affairs under Trump, responded to the president's Tuesday comments with concerns of his own. Kathryn Krawczyk