The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org. April 24, 2020 Health and Human Services Spokesperson Deletes Racist Tweets About Chinese People --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Department of Health and Human Services' new spokesperson repeatedly made racist comments about Chinese people and claimed Democrats wanted the coronavirus to kill thousands of people. Michael Caputo, a longtime Republican political operative and Trump ally, was appointed last week as assistant secretary for public affairs at HHS. In since-deleted social media posts archived online, Caputo tweeted, "Millions of Chinese suck the blood out of rabid bats as an appetizer and eat the [bleep] out of anteaters." In follow-up tweets, Caputo wrote, "Don't you have a bat to eat?" and "You're very convincing, Wang." .