October 01, 2020

A $300 million ad blitz from HHS

17 minutes

The U.S. health department made a wish list of more than 30 celebrities including Garth Brooks, Taylor Swift and Billy Joel to appear in their ad campaign to "inspire hope" about coronavirus, but they ended up with only Dennis Quaid, CeCe Winans and Hasidic singer Shulem Lemmer. Host Dan Diamond talks with Dispatch's Jeremy Siegel about HHS' latest PR blunder. But first, yep, Dan did call Garth Brooks' home phone for this story.

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The ad blitz has sputtered for weeks behind the scenes, Dan scooped.

It’s also raised red flags after funding was abruptly taken from CDC and the business partner of HHS’ spokesperson was tapped to do the videos.

POLITICO's Daniel Lippman first put a spotlight on the campaign.

Dan Diamond is host of POLITICO Pulse Check and author of the POLITICO Pulse newsletter.
Jeremy Siegel is a host for POLITICO Dispatch and produced this episode.
Jenny Ament is the senior producer of POLITICO Audio.
Irene Noguchi is the executive producer of POLITICO Audio.

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