Trump claims hydroxychloroquine has 'rave reviews' as he justifies taking drug for two weeks and slams Columbia University as a 'liberal, disgraceful institution' for study about social distancing

President Donald Trump has claimed hydroxychloroquine has 'rave reviews' and revealed he started taking it after two people tested positive for the coronavirus in the White House. 

Trump made the assertion while on 'Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson'- scheduled to show on Sunday - and shared that he had been taking the anti-malaria drug for roughly two weeks.  

'Hydroxy has had tremendous rave reviews,' Trump said, after being asked whether him taking the drug was sending mixed messaging to the country since so many have been skeptical about its usage.

'I believe in it enough that I took a program because I had two people in the White House that tested positive.'

Since Trump told reporters Monday that he decided to take hydroxychloroquine, a drug that he's been touting as a potential coronavirus treatment for weeks, the White House has been on the defense. 

+5

'Hydroxy has had tremendous rave reviews,' Trump declared, while on 'Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson', scheduled to show on Sunday

+5

Government health experts don't have evidence yet that hydroxychloroquine is effective against the coronavirus. The FDA did approve its 'off-label' use, but also put out a warning on April 30 about heart problems it could cause and said it should only be used to treat coronavirus patients who are hospitalized

That evening the White House press secretary sent out a note from the president's physician that said 'we concluded the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks' on the decision for Trump to take hydroxychloroquine. 

But the doctor didn't say he wrote Trump the prescription.   

Government health experts don't have evidence yet that hydroxychloroquine is effective against the coronavirus. 

The FDA did approve its 'off-label' use, but also put out a warning on April 30 about heart problems it could cause and said it should only be used to treat coronavirus patients who are hospitalized. 

Another clip from the Sunday program shows President Trump slamming Columbia University after a damning study from the university revealed that starting lockdown earlier could have curbed coronavirus cases by 83 per cent. 

+5

Another clip from the Sunday program shows President Trump slamming Columbia University after a damning study from the university revealed that starting lockdown earlier, could have curbed coronavirus cases by 83 per cent

'Columbia University is a liberal, disgraceful institution, to write that,' he said of the top ranked university.  

Trump claimed that banning travel from China on January 31 was unprecedented and resulted in him getting 'tremendous heat.'

'And that went on for months, they were criticizing me,' he continued. 'Sleepy Joe Biden said I'm xenophobic, meaning I don't like certain people.' 

He later added: 'I saw that report from Columbia University and it is a disgrace that they would play right to their little group of people to tell them what to do.' 

More than 54,000 lives in the US would have been saved and over 900,000 coronavirus cases could have been avoided if social distancing measures and stay-at-home orders were imposed two weeks earlier, according to the study form Columbia. 

The federal government and states began issuing stay-at-home orders on March 15 - four days after the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a pandemic.

+5

'Columbia University is a liberal, disgraceful institution, to write that,' he said of the top ranked university

By May 3, a total of 65,307 Americans had died from the virus and the number of infections across the country had surpassed one million.

Had the US introduced lockdown measures one week earlier on March 8, the death toll is estimated to have been just 29,410 by then, according to the study.

The number of cases nationwide would have been just under 390,000.

Researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai N.Y.U. and Grossman School of Medicine also found that the bulk of New York's COVID-19 cases were by way of Europe.  

The scientists studied DNA from thousands of samples of coronavirus patients and concluded that the first travelers to bring the virus to the city came from Europe, not Asia, according to The New York Times.

But they also found that the strand of the virus that arrived in Washington state came from China. 

President Trump banned entry to the US by foreign nationals who had visited China within the past two weeks on 31 January. He banned travel from Europe on March 11. 

President Trump's appearance on 'Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson' is scheduled to air on Sinclair sites at 9.30am EDT on Sunday.