INSPIRE? NOPE

Michael Caputo’s $300 Million Coronavirus Public Relations Blitz Falls Apart

From the list of 30-odd celebrities HHS hoped would participate, only three agreed. And an inexperienced 22-year-old staffer has reportedly taken the lead.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ outsized $300 million public health campaign to “defeat despair and inspire hope” during the pandemic is falling apart, Politico reports. In the wake of medical leave taken by its main architect, HHS spokesperson Michael Caputo, celebrities and prominent medical experts have refused to participate, with the latter holding out for interviews in Anthony Fauci’s busy schedule. Only Dennis Quaid, CeCe Winans and Hasidic singer Shulem Lemmer have so far agreed to participate. Sources with knowledge of the campaign also told Politico that Caputo’s assistant, Madeleine Hubbard, a 2020 college graduate with no public health experience, had repeatedly overstepped her role in the project. One official called the project “a boondoggle.” “We’re in the middle of a pandemic… we could use that quarter of a billion dollars on buying PPE [personal protective equipment], not promoting PSAs with C-list celebrities.”