A CNN segment casting doubt on President Donald Trump’s health unraveled Tuesday after it was revealed that the featured “doctor” who criticized his diagnosis is not a practicing physician and has spent most of her career in political and advocacy roles.
Chris Pernell, identified by CNN as a medical expert, gained attention for her comments on Trump’s recent diagnosis of chronic venous insufficiency (CVI), a common condition in older adults where weakened valves in the veins make it difficult for blood to return to the heart.
Pernell warned that Trump’s condition could worsen without treatment and lead to “deep venous thrombosis,” a claim that contradicted the White House’s own report stating there was “no evidence of deep vein thrombosis or arterial disease.”
But as the Washington Free Beacon uncovered, Pernell has not practiced clinical medicine beyond her residency. After earning her M.D. from Duke University in 2003 and completing a residency at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health — which focuses on epidemiology rather than hands-on patient care — Pernell pivoted to administrative and advocacy positions.
Her LinkedIn profile shows roles such as “Chief Strategic Integration and Health Equity Officer” at University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, where she drafted the hospital’s “equity and inclusion strategy,” hired its first diversity officer, and implemented mandatory “implicit bias and structural racism training.”
She left the hospital in 2022 after an internal investigation into her social media posts comparing vaccine skeptics to white supremacists and criticizing Republicans. Pernell later claimed she was “forced out,” describing her departure as part of an “abusive relationship between white power structures and black executives.”
Currently, Pernell serves as Director of the NAACP’s Center for Health Equity, where she advocates for broad progressive goals, including reparations, noncitizen voting, an end to deportations, and programs expanding Black homeownership.
She also sits on the New Jersey Reparations Council, where she has called for large-scale direct payments to Black residents.
Outside her professional work, Pernell describes herself as an “apostle” of Bet Hashem YHWH, a church founded by her brother Timothy Pernell Jr., who has posted inflammatory remarks online calling Trump “a pedophile,” “a rapist,” and “the antichrist,” while labeling white evangelicals “sick” and accusing them of “doing the work of Satan.”
