Joe Scarborough joined Andrea Mitchell on Thursday after President Trump and other government officials gave another press conference on the latest COVID-19 developments where he decried the "really strange spectacle" of Trump calling the media out for repeating Chinese propaganda.
The Morning Joe co-host lamented the lack of useful information revealed at the press conference, "We’ve got no answers in the press conference really about how quickly these drugs were going to be moved to the market. We really got no answers, no further answers on testing."
He then tried to argue that Trump had contradicted himself when criticizing the media's willingness to repeat the Chinese government's claim that referring to COVID-19 as "the China Virus" is somehow racist, "And at the end, we had this really strange spectacle of the President bashing the media, basically saying they were swallowing whole Chinese communist talking points. At the same time, the president was talking about bipartisanship and how impressed he's been that this country is coming together. So, obviously, an uneven performance, and I'm not so sure that it's a performance that will assure the markets today."
Americans are coming together, because most aren't concerned with the virus' name, but Trump, as the head of federal government's response has to deal with the disinformation war being waged by Beijing that says the virus was a really a creation of the U.S. military and the media is, intentionally or not, helping Beijing in that war by focusing more on alleged racism than CCP cover-ups and conspiracy theories.
Fellow Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski lamented Trump's "long, rambling tirades." She asserted, "the key takeaway from what we just saw is that we're a country still flat-footed" and that, "You go to this news conference, you want to hear the latest. You want to ask questions about the latest on testing, on supplies, like masks and ventilators, and you've got sort of long, rambling tirades from the president going all over the place talking about fantastic remedies that will be unbelievable like nothing ever seen before and none of it is imminent. None of it is now. None of it is any time soon and there are no masks, and we have the CDC website guidance giving guidance to make your own. That's where we are."
Here is the transcript for the March 19 show:
MSNBC
Andrea Mitchell Reports12:53 PM ET
JOE SCARBOROUGH: And this federal government, led by Donald Trump, believes that it can only be federally supported by being there and possibly assisting governors. But also by cutting regulations. That seems right now to be the extent of it. We’ve got no answers in the press conference really about how quickly these drugs were going to be moved to the market. We really got no answers, no further answers on testing. And at the end, we had this really strange spectacle of the president bashing the media, basically saying they were swallowing whole Chinese communist talking points. At the same time, the president was talking about bipartisanship and how impressed he's been that this country is coming together. So, obviously, an uneven performance, and I'm not so sure that it's a performance that will assure the markets today.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Yeah and Andrea, I think the key takeaway from what we just saw is that we're a country still flat-footed in the fight against a deadly virus that is spreading across the country. You go to this news conference, you want to hear the latest. You want to ask questions about the latest on testing, on supplies, like masks and ventilators, and you've got sort of long, rambling tirades from the president going all over the place talking about fantastic remedies that will be unbelievable like nothing ever seen before and none of it is imminent. None of it is now. None of it is any time soon and there are no masks, and we have the CDC website guidance giving guidance to make your own. That's where we are.
