CNN Allegedly Pressured Dr. Drew To Reverse His Comments About Hillary’s Health
CNN execs allegedly put the screws to Dr. Drew after he made controversial comments about Hillary Clinton’s health.
According to what a source close to the situation supposedly told the “Page Six” gossip section of the New York Post, “CNN is so supportive of Clinton, network honchos acted like the Mafia when confronting Drew. First, they demanded he retract his comments, but he wouldn’t.” An inside source described a follow-up series of phone calls and emails as “downright scary and creepy.”
About a week after expressing grave concerns during a Los Angeles radio interview about Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s health (in which he alluded to possible brain damage) and what he considered the primitive healthcare treatment that she was receiving, Dr. Drew Pinsky, the ubiquitous TV physician and board-certified internist, lost his gig on CNN sister network HLN.
At the time, some Twitter users accused Dr. Drew of unethical behavior because of what they considered a long-distance, public diagnosis without actually examining a patient.
According to what an insider told The Wrap, HLN supposedly decided to cancel his show well before Pinsky’s controversial radio comments, however, as part of a network-wide ongoing rebranding, which also previously signaled the end to Nancy Grace’s long-running program.
The network indicated that ending Dr. Drew On Call after five years on HLN as of September 22 was a mutual decision, Variety reported in late August.
“Dr. Drew Pinsky is so afraid of Hillary Clinton and her supporters, he won’t blame them for the cancellation of his show on HLN,” and just wants them to leave him alone, the Post claimed, however.
Pinsky’s PR rep categorically denied the alleged intimidation to the tabloid, however, declaring that “I know the timing is suspicious, and I know it’s hard to believe, but the two things had nothing to do with each other.”
CNN DEMANDED Dr. Drew Retract Comments About Hillary’s Health https://t.co/gJ39QYl4RR pic.twitter.com/O8hCx0tjAN
— Downtrend.com (@ReaganCoalition) September 4, 2016
In a statement upon the cancellation, Dr. Drew explained that “It has been a privilege working at HLN. My executive producer Burt Dubrow and our outstanding staff and contributors were consistently exceptional. I am very excited to stay within the CNN Worldwide family as a contributor.”
Although Clinton’s doctor pronounced her fit to serve as president in a July, 2015, letter, conspiracy theorists and other Hillary foes have speculated about brain trauma, seizures, Parkinson’s disease, and other alleged maladies. The subject of Hillary Clinton’s health has become a hot topic on social media evidenced by the trending hashtag #HillarysHealth and has subsequently made its way into the mainstream news media.
In the above-mentioned letter, the campaign indicated that Hillary Clinton takes prescriptions for an underactive thyroid and for blood clots. Clinton suffered a concussion in 2012.
Last week, President Obama’s longtime personal physician and a Clinton supporter told CNN that Hillary Clinton should undergo a full neurological workup. He also called upon both Clinton and GOP standard-bearer Donald Trump to release their full medical records.
In an August 28 tweet, Trump declared that he would do so as long as his rival followed suit.
On Friday, the FBI released its summary of the July 2 interview with Hillary Clinton in connection with the private email server investigation, which reportedly is the fourth time that the government has disclosed information, which pundits call a “document dump,” before a holiday weekend that might be deemed damaging to the former Secretary of State’s presidential bid.
“The revelations included in the FBI release include Clinton claims that she didn’t know that [C] meant classified, that she couldn’t remember things because of a concussion, that she lost cellphones and a computer with sensitive information, and she broke protocol by emailing President Obama directly while overseas, exposing the President’s email to hackers,” Breitbart News asserted.
Specifically in relation to forgetting about security briefings about the proper handling of federal records, “in December of 2012, Clinton suffered a concussion and then around the New Year had a blood clot. Based on her doctor’s advice, she could only work at State for a few hours a day and could not recall every briefing she received,” Reuters quoted the FBI report as detailing.
“A Clinton campaign aide said Clinton only referenced her concussion to explain she was not at work but for a few hours a day at that time, not that she did not remember things from that period… The FBI report, which does not quote Clinton directly, is ambiguous about whether it was her concussion that affected her ability to recall briefings,” Reuters added.
The Mediaite website claims that the FBI notes suggest that Hillary Clinton said she couldn’t remember something 40 times in her 3-1/2 hour discussion with the agents.
Perhaps fueling the rumors about her health over the past few months, Hillary Clinton has suffered several coughing fits on the campaign trail and reportedly cleared her throat 22 times during her presidential nomination acceptance speech in Philadelphia in July.
Although Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are roughly the same age, and neither could be described as slim, the Republican nominee maintains a full schedule of rallies across the country and (often contentious) media interviews, while Clinton follows a relatively light public event schedule, and has not held a press conference in nearly one year.
Parenthetically and unrelated to Dr. Drew who celebrates a birthday today, last week HLN apologized for blurring out the pro-Donald Trump T-shirt in a re-airing of an interview with the retired cop who rescued a four-month-old baby girl from a hot car.
Do you think that it’s plausible that the CNN “mafia” made Dr. Drew an offer he couldn’t refuse?
[Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP Photo]