CNN Trots Out DEI Doctor Who Doesn’t Practice Medicine To Diagnose Trump

Chris Pernell, a doctor who CNN has invited on air to comment on President Donald Trump’s vein condition, has not practiced medicine in years and currently serves as the Director of the NAACP’s Center for Health Equity, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Pernell, a frequent guest on CNN programs like “Newsnight With Abby Phillip,” also allegedly attends a church whose leader describes Trump as the antichrist, according to a Tuesday report from the Washington Free Beacon.

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A CNN “doctor” who raised concerns about President Trump’s health appears not to have practiced medicine since her residency and has instead spent her career working in medical DEI

She is also an “apostle” of a church whose leader believes Trump is the “antichrist” pic.twitter.com/67xvST5lWs

— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) July 22, 2025

Though Pernell graduated with her M.D. from Duke University in 2003, a cursory review of her LinkedIn page appears to show that Pernell has not practiced medicine for years.

While currently working for the NAACP, past positions for Pernell include Clinical Assistant Professor at Rutgers University, Chief Strategic Integration and Health Equity Officer at University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, and a Senior Clinical Advisor at Coral Health.

Coral Health, according to Pernell’s LinkedIn, is a “health equity firm” on a mission to “improve cultural fluency, health equity and long-term outcomes using culturally specific health education, activation, resources, and care navigation plans.”

At University Hospital, Pernell was responsible for drafting the hospital’s first “equity and inclusion strategy” and implemented mandatory “implicit bias and structural racism training,” according to ROI-NJ.

When she left the hospital in 2022 after unsuccessfully campaigning to become CEO, she blamed her exit on racism during an appearance on “The Karen Hunter Show,” the Free Beacon noted.

“It is an abusive relationship between white power structures and black executives,” she said of the rejected promotion.

After Trump’s White House physician diagnosed him with chronic venous insufficiency (CVI), Pernell took to CNN’s airwaves to signal the potential dire consequences of the diagnosis. (RELATED: CNN Panelist Seriously Suggests Trump Was Never Shot In Ear)

“It is a disease that is progressive,” Pernell said in a CNN segment shared by the Free Beacon.

“If there aren’t conservative treatments, elevation, compression, medication, if needed, to treat accompanying ulcers or skin changes, it can worsen and actually put a person at risk for deep venous thrombosis,” she said.

Her analysis appears to run in stark contrast to details from Trump’s diagnosis, which White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shared with the press.

“Importantly, there was no evidence of deep vein thrombosis or arterial disease,” Leavitt told reporters Thursday.