While slamming the President for taking economic considerations into play in the fight against the coronavirus, reporters claim it is Trump himself who is politicizing the pandemic. NBC journalist Jonathan Allen seemed to lack this sense of self-awareness as he crafted his latest hit piece, published Wednesday at NBCNews.com.
The article began with an overt gibe at the President’s leadership capabilities and credibility; "President Donald Trump has told Americans that he's taking bold moves to fight the coronavirus crisis, but his actions and messages have been muddled by uncertainty about public health, the economy and politics."
Following a rundown on the legislative actions taken by foreign countries and states alike to flatten the virus curve, Allen accused President Trump of arrogance and willful ignorance for granting Americans a sense of security as they look to their financial timelines:
But the president, the leader of the free world, is acting as if he's smarter than the rest of them — suggesting that he can save lives and salvage fortunes by encouraging America to get back to work sooner rather than later. He's even chosen a day with great symbolic but little scientific value as his target for people to congregate again: Easter Sunday, April 12.
Taking things up a notch, Allen seemed to place blame on the President’s supporters for leading him astray and ignoring the severity of the virus:
No one is in a more precarious political position than the president, who wavers between appealing to a Republican base that is increasingly pushing him to put economic considerations ahead of slowing the spread of the virus and bowing to the reality that the disease is a growing threat.
The reporter even accused the President of "pitting Americans against each other":
"When Trump is riffing in front of a microphone, he is often pitting Americans against each other along political, ideological and geographical grounds — picking winners and losers, casting blame and patting himself on the back for winning a ‘war’ against a virus that doesn’t respond nearly as much to unpredictability in strategy and tactics as his language might imply.”
Maybe Allen and his colleagues should look in the mirror before they accuse anyone else exploiting the crisis to sow division.
Allen begrudgingly acknowledged the efforts being put forth by the Trump Administration to tackle the virus head on, but fell short of bestowing any credit on the President himself. In fact, Allen then criticized Trump for failing to wield government power to the highest extent permissible:
Behind the scenes, members of his administration are working to deliver resources to states, negotiating a rescue package with Democrats in Congress and listening closely to scientists on how to handle the public health part of the pandemic. At the same time, those efforts have been constrained by Trump's reluctance to deploy the full power of the federal government to allocate medical supplies to states and to force private companies to replenish them.
So long are the days when the news was a source of rationality and neutrality during times of crisis. Or normal times for that matter.
