While President Trump continues to recover from the coronavirus, on Tuesday, the classless hosts on CBS This Morning hoped that he wouldn’t score any sympathy “points” with voters for overcoming the illness. As 60 Minutes correspondent John Dickerson crassly put it: “You don’t get points for standing if you shot yourself in the foot.”
At the top of the 7:30 a.m. ET half hour, co-host Gayle King related: “President Trump is back in that building, the White House, recovering from the coronavirus....And before leaving Walter Reed, he tweeted this: ‘Don’t be afraid of COVID. Don't let it dominate your life.’” Turning to Dickerson, she bitterly added: “I’m thinking the 200,000-plus people who have died from this and their grieving families may beg to differ with the position that the President is taking.”
It was then that Dickerson rushed to shut down any possibility that the President could garner any good will from the American people in the weeks leading up to the election:
The message he’s trying to send is that he is strong, that he’s defiant, that he has beaten this thing. And some people might take it that way, but 70% or more of the country, according to an ABC poll, say that the President contributed to his own condition, that he didn’t take the coronavirus seriously. And they are likely to see this as a problem of his own making because he downplayed the threat, he didn’t wear a mask, he didn’t follow the basic rules of his own administration. And so if he is responsible for his own condition, then he can hardly be triumphant in return from something he created. You don’t get points for standing if you shot yourself in the foot.
King was impressed: “... that’s a good analogy...” She then touted polling that “two thirds of Americans think that he’s acting irresponsibly with the messaging.”
During an interview with former Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg in the 8:00 a.m. ET hour, King even highlighted wild conspiracy theories that Trump did not really have COVID-19.
Talking to Dickerson, fellow co-host Anthony Mason warned: “There’s a danger in this strategy of declaring victory, too, isn’t there, John? In that if he has a relapse in the next week or so, which doctors say is – can be a real possibility with the coronavirus, that he might have to go back to the hospital.”
Dickerson agreed: “That’s right. So that’s a personal danger for the President.” He then saw an opportunity to use the President’s medical treatment to push class warfare: “...it exacerbates one of the things we know is at the heart of this story, which is that if you have money, means, and power, you can get treated or maybe you won’t get COVID in the first place maybe but you’re going to be better off than anybody in America who doesn’t have the money, means, and power.”
That same sentiment was repeatedly echoed on the network evening newscasts Monday night.
Adding to the nasty tone coming from CBS, on Monday, the network’s White House correspondent Ben Tracy took to Twitter and hurled this insane attack: “I felt safer reporting in North Korea than I currently do reporting at The White House. This is just crazy.”
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un routinely murders journalists who publish even mild criticism of his brutal regime. How can Tracy even be allowed to reporter on the Trump administration after making such an unhinged statement?
The ranting from Dickerson on Tuesday was brought to viewers by Lincoln and Capital One. You can fight back by letting these advertisers know what you think of them sponsoring such content.
Here is a full transcript of the October 6 segment:
7:30 AM ET
GAYLE KING: Welcome back to CBS This Morning. President Trump is back in that building, the White House, recovering from the coronavirus, but there are still so many questions about his health and the message that he’s now sending to the country. The President, as you saw, removed his mask after his return for a photo op on the White House balcony. He went into the White House and came back out and took off the mask. And before leaving Walter Reed, he tweeted this: “Don’t be afraid of COVID. Don't let it dominate your life.”
CBS News senior political analyst and 60 Minutes correspondent, that’s John Dickerson, joins us to discuss. John, it’s always good to see you, but really excited to see you today. I think you can add a lot to this conversation because I’m thinking the 200,000-plus people who have died from this and their grieving families may beg to differ with the position that the President is taking. So what message is he sending to the public today?
JOHN DICKERSON: Well, the message, first to look at his return to the White House. The message he’s trying to send is that he is strong, that he’s defiant, that he has beaten this thing. And some people might take it that way, but 70% or more of the country, according to an ABC poll, say that the President contributed to his own condition, that he didn’t take the coronavirus seriously. And they are likely to see this as a problem of his own making because he downplayed the threat, he didn’t wear a mask, he didn’t follow the basic rules of his own administration. And so if he is responsible for his own condition, then he can hardly be triumphant in return from something he created. You don’t get points for standing if you shot yourself in the foot.
KING: Yeah, and you know what, the latest poll, two thirds – that’s a good analogy – two thirds of Americans think that he’s acting irresponsibly with the messaging. Do you think the White House will reconsider their strategy here or no, no way?
DICKERSON: Well, I don’t think there’s any reconsidering because the strategy is coming from the patient. So I think that the question of whether the President behaved responsibly, if you look at the three main criticisms of the administration and the President’s response to COVID as a national crisis, it’s been basically that the President has downplayed the threat, that he hasn’t put force behind the mitigation efforts and the protection efforts, and then that he has misled the country with respect to how bad things are. Those are the global criticisms of the administration. Those exact criticisms are being echoed precisely in the handling of the President’s own case, and so, since the majority of the country thinks the President mishandled the global situation, the mishandling of his own case that people think that he’s engaged only echos the larger problem for him, a problem that the whole nation is still going through.
ANTHONY MASON: There’s a danger in this strategy of declaring victory, too, isn’t there, John? In that if he has a relapse in the next week or so, which doctors say is – can be a real possibility with the coronavirus, that he might have to go back to the hospital.
DICKERSON: That’s right. So that’s a personal danger for the President. It’s also when he says don’t fear COVID and makes it look as though he’s defeated it. One, it tramples on the feeling of more than 207,000 families in America who’ve lost loved ones. Secondly, it exacerbates one of the things we know is at the heart of this story, which is that if you have money, means, and power, you can get treated or maybe you won’t get COVID in the first place maybe, but you’re going to be better off than anybody in America who doesn’t have the money, means, and power. So it exacerbates that issue.
And this is still an ongoing story. And the President is basically saying, “Everybody get back into the game, you know, don’t worry about this.” People are making their own risk assessments about how they can inch back into normal life. They are not going to be cajoled into that. We’ve seen that over the months of this virus. So they may very well look at the President and instead of hearing his message of get back into the game, they may think, wow, if the White House can become a super spreader location, the most protected place in America, maybe this virus is even more virulent than I thought and I should be even more cautious.
TONY DOKOUPIL: John, you mentioned money, means, and power. Many of the President’s supporters don’t have money, means, and power, and yet, they support him because he fights on their behalf, in their view. When he goes back on the campaign trail, I have no crystal ball, but I’m guessing he’s gonna go as soon as possible, and maybe even against expert advice. When he goes back on the campaign trail and he meets with those supporters, how is his message, his posture going to resonate with them?
DICKERSON: Well, I think we saw from the supporters who went to Walter Reed and who he felt such a connection with, that he endangered the health of his Secret Service by going on that ride to waive to them, the connection between the President and his supporters is quite strong, we’ve know that forever. The question though – the larger question is whether if he goes back out on the campaign trail it surfaces all of these questions that are at the heart of this, which is whether he is doing things for his own personal political benefit, his own standing, that are not in the public interest. That’s been a question throughout his administration. It’s a question here with respect to his personal health. And when he goes out there, if he’s not following the health guidelines of his own administration, then it reanimates all of these questions that are at the heart of his own personal sickness.
And by the way, there are 30-plus other people who were infected at this super spreader event, I haven’t seen any statements, certainly from the President or anybody else, expressing sympathy or care for those people who are going through a version of what he went through. Public campaign events raise all of those questions again and keep this center stage, which is an issue he doesn’t want at the center of his re-election campaign.
MASON: Yeah, and as we pointed out, John, no evidence of contact tracing by the White House yet at all. Thank you, John Dickerson, we appreciate it.
