Birx, who had served as the Trump White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, said the phone call followed her appearance on CNN in August.
“It was a CNN report in August that got horrible pushback. That was a very difficult time, because everybody in the White House was upset with that interview and the clarity that I brought about the epidemic,” Birx told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta in the documentary “COVID WAR: The Pandemic Doctors Speak Out.”
“I got called by the President,” Birx continued. “It was very uncomfortable, very direct and very difficult to hear.”
Asked by Gupta whether she was threatened during the call, Birx responded, “I would say it was a very uncomfortable conversation.”
The documentary “COVID WAR: The Pandemic Doctors Speak Out” airs Sunday at 9 p.m. ET on CNN.
CNN has reached out to Trump’s office for comment on the documentary.
“I look at it this way. The first time we have an excuse,” Birx said. “There were about a hundred thousand deaths that came from that original surge. All of the rest of them, in my mind, could have been mitigated or decreased substantially.”