(CNN) – The new spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services in a series of now-deleted tweets made racist and derogatory comments about Chinese people, said Democrats wanted the coronavirus to kill millions of people and accused the media of intentionally creating panic around the pandemic to hurt President Donald Trump.
Michael Caputo, a longtime New York Republican political operative who worked on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, was appointed last week as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at HHS, a prominent communications role at the department which serves a central role in the federal government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Caputo, a prolific user who often tweeted insults and profanity, recently erased nearly his entire Twitter history from before April 12. CNN’s KFile used the Internet Archive’s Way Back Machine to review more than 1300 deleted tweets and retweets from late February to early April many of which were regarding the rapidly spreading coronavirus.
While he occasionally weighed in with praise for public officials or more straightforward observations, tweets from this period are also littered with conspiracy theories and controversial language to go after perceived critics of the Trump administration.
In a series of tweets on March 12, Caputo responded to a baseless conspiracy theory that the United States brought the coronavirus to Wuhan, China, by tweeting that “millions of Chinese suck the blood out of rabid bats as an appetizer and eat the ass out of anteaters.”
He followed up at another user, “Don’t you have a bat to eat?” and tweeted at another user, “You’re very convincing, Wang.”
After publication, Caputo responded to CNN’s request for comment by saying that reporting on his past tweets is “fair game, dude. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter to me at all.” He claimed that he deletes his tweets “every month and I do it because it drives people mad.”
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NEW: In deleted tweets, new HHS spokesman Michael Caputo said the coronavirus was because "millions of Chinese suck the blood out of rabid bats as an appetizer and eat the ass out of anteaters."
He said Democrats had a "goal" of "massive deaths."https://t.co/V1srtrx52E
— andrew kaczynski🤔 (@KFILE) April 23, 2020
He literally worked for Putin in the Kremlin, what do you expect?https://t.co/PYq4tSGrPZ
— John Schindler (@20committee) April 23, 2020
And just for good measure, he repeats the "maybe a bioweapon" business, before getting the racism. https://t.co/eRmlu4Eu9N
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) April 23, 2020
Some of the deleted tweets from the new HHS assistant secretary for public affairs: https://t.co/V1srtrx52E pic.twitter.com/qmSHh8tFbs
— andrew kaczynski🤔 (@KFILE) April 23, 2020
Gee, wonder why Trump picked him?
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