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Dr. Scott W. Atlas, the White House coronavirus adviser, apologized on Sunday for appearing on a Russian state-sponsored news show that has been instrumental in an effort by the Russian government to spread false health information during the pandemic. Dr. Atlas did not, however, apologize for the content of the interview, where he continued a pattern as Mr. Trump’s adviser of downplaying the severity of the coronavirus pandemic, as well as asserting without evidence that lockdown measures used to contain the virus are “killing people.” (11/1)

RT is one of more than a dozen media outlets that Facebook began labeling in June as under state control. RT's Twitter page is also labeled as "Russian state-affiliated media." "I regret doing the interview and apologize for allowing myself to be taken advantage of," Atlas said in a tweet. "I especially apologize to the national security community who is working hard to defend us."(Treisman, 11/1)

In the interview on Saturday, Atlas said there was no understating the pandemic, noting the U.S. death toll. “It’s tragic. There’s no question about that,” he said. “But if you wanna know what’s happening right now, I think there’s a gross distortion that has sort of been typical of the reporting on this. And that is that there’s this frenzy of focusing on the number of cases when we see a lot of reasons to be sort of, you know, cautiously optimistic here rather than fearful.” (McCaskill, 11/1)