Twitter deletes video promoted by Pres. Trump sharing unproven claims about drug as COVID-19 treatment

WASHINGTON - Twitter removed a video that was retweeted on President Donald Trump's account late Monday night sharing unproven claims that an anti-malaria drug is an effective treatment for the coronavirus.

After returning from a trip to North Carolina where President Trump promoted efforts to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, he retweeted a series of tweets advocating for hydroxychloroquine.

There is no known cure for COVID-19, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization. Numerous studies have shown that hydroxychloroquine is not an effective treatment for virus. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also recently withdrew an order that allowed the drug's use as a emergency treatment for COVID-19.

The video, which was widely shared on social media, appeared to include about a dozen doctors standing in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., according to FOX News.

A Twitter spokesperson said it was “taking action in line” with the platform’s COVID-19 misinformation policy. Twitter also removed a tweet by Donald Trump Jr., that featured a version of the video and limited some of his account's functionality for 12 hours, according to CNN.

The video was also shared on Facebook and YouTube and later removed from those platforms as well.

“Yes, we removed it for sharing false information about cures and treatments for COVID-19,” Facebook representative Andy Stone said on Twitter.

The president also shared a post from the Twitter account for a podcast hosted by Steve Bannon, a former top White House adviser to President Trump, accusing Dr. Anthony Fauci of misleading the public over hydroxychloroquine.

Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert and leading member of the White House coronavirus task force, pushed back Tuesday during an appearance on ABC's “Good Morning America.”

“I go along with the FDA,” said Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "The overwhelming prevailing clinical trials that have looked at the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine have indicated that it is not effective in coronavirus disease.”

It's not the first time Fauci has come under attack from President Trump and those close to him.

The president's top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, who has clashed with Fauci over hydroxychloroquine, recently penned a scathing attack on the doctor that was published by USA Today. The newspaper later said the opinion piece did not meet its standards.

In recent nationally televised interviews, President Trump himself has described Fauci as “a bit of an alarmist” and accused him of making “mistakes” in his coronavirus guidance to the American people.

Asked if he can continue to do his job when President Trump continues to publicly question his credibility, Fauci said Tuesday he'll press ahead “no matter what" because of the stakes involved.

“I don’t tweet. I don’t even read them, so I don’t really want to go there,” Fauci said. “I just will continue to do my job no matter what comes out because I think it’s very important. We’re in the middle of a crisis with regard to an epidemic, a pandemic. This is what I do. This is what I’ve been trained for my entire professional life and I’ll continue to do it.”

Asked about claims he's been misleading the public, Fauci said: “I have not been misleading the American public under any circumstances.”