During the 1:00 PM ET hour on CNN Thursday, host Brianna Keilar trashed President Trump for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. In addition to repeatedly accusing the President of “deliberate negligence,” Keilar went so far as to accuse him of “killing Americans.”
Keilar began her monologue by declaring “This is a nation in crisis. We are watching leaders who are in denial and it’s killing Americans.” She called President Trump “deliberately negligent” and claimed that he “knowingly puts Americans at risk by holding indoor rallies and events and by cutting funding for coronavirus testing.”
According to Keilar, Trump “doesn’t even acknowledge the collective loss of the nation. Instead, he turns the pandemic into a racist punchline for his rally-goers to cheer.” Keilar also whined that “the President is focused more on sending troops to protect statues of dead confederate generals than on protecting American lives.”
The CNN host also appeared to enjoy herself quite a bit when playing a clip of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis “lecturing states and the media for not opening up fast enough and for warning Americans about the life and death risk of the virus.” She teed up the video by describing DeSantis as one of the local leaders “abdicating responsibility to the people who elected them.”
In the clip, DeSantis scorched the media, who “waxed poetically for weeks and weeks about how Florida was going to be just like New York. Wait two weeks, Florida is going to be next. Just like Italy, wait two weeks. Well, hell, we’re eight weeks away from that and it hasn’t happened.”
After the clip concluded, Keilar seemed to relish the opportunity to effectively tell DeSantis “I told you so,” noting that “they’re hitting new records in Florida.” Moving away from DeSantis, Keilar quickly returned to Trump-bashing, agreeing with former National Security Advisor John Bolton that “the President looks at everything through the prism of his re-election.”
As she introduced CNN senior political analyst John Avlon, Keilar predicted that Trump’s “deliberate negligence” will be “one of the things that will stand out the most about his presidency when history judges it.” Avlon seemed to agree with Keilar’s analysis, contrasting Trump with “every President since Washington” who has “tried to marshal the forces of the office to unite the nation, focus on what unites us, not what divides us.” While Avlon and Keilar will not admit it, Keilar’s monologue only reinforces the fact that no one has done more to focus on “what divides us” than the liberal media.
A transcript of the relevant portion of Thursday’s edition of CNN Newsroom is below. Click “expand” to read more.
CNN Newsroom
06/25/20
01:06 PM
BRIANNA KEILAR: This is a nation in crisis. We are watching leaders who are in denial and it’s killing Americans. Just compare where we are as a nation to the rest of the world. New cases are on the rise in 29 states. The nation’s three most populous states, they’re setting daily records for coronavirus cases; hospitals are overwhelmed. It’s like we’re back at square one when the pandemic first hit or worse in many places.
(…)
1:06:47 PM
KEILAR: Now, we’ve learned nothing from the suffering of other countries and our own. Much of this is a failure of national leadership and a failure of a national strategy. Here is the evidence. The President is deliberately negligent. He knowingly puts Americans at risk by holding indoor rallies and events and by cutting funding for coronavirus testing, including in hotspots like Texas, where cases are surging. He doesn’t like testing because it shows what’s really going on and he has been admitting that for months.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
PRESIDENT TRUMP: We have so much testing. I don’t think you need that kind of testing and that much test. So, in a way, by doing all of this testing, we make ourselves look bad. I have always said, “testing is somewhat overrated.” This is why the whole concept of tests aren’t necessarily great.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
KEILAR: You can’t just pretend your way out of a medical condition by not testing. I have a two-year-old son, right? If I hadn’t taken a pregnancy test almost three years ago, I would still have a two-year-old son. And also, when Americans need to be informed the most and given the hard truth, the President is keeping his own task force doctors from briefing the public. Dr. Fauci says that they don’t talk for weeks. In the middle of one of the country’s worst disasters in modern times, the President of the United States does not talk regularly with his own medical experts. And then the masks, study after study shows they save lives. A new model projects that if everyone wears them, we will save 30,000 lives by October. 30,000. That is five times the number of people at the President’s campaign rally in Tulsa this weekend. That is a lot of people. And yet, the President still refuses to set an example by endorsing the use of masks or even wearing one himself. He mocks people who do wear masks. It is childish but it’s also illogical because the President’s number one concern is the economy, right? And if it is, he should be pushing masks. Just look at countries where masks have not been politicized. Cases are significantly lower than the U.S. Culture and society are getting back to normal. Right now, a number of nations are considering a ban of Americans traveling to their countries because it’s so bad here. And all of this leads to more people dying. Remember when this was the President’s benchmark.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
TRUMP: They had minimum numbers of 100,000 and I think we’re going to beat that; 100,000 deaths. Can you believe that? That was a minimum. The minimum was 100,000 deaths and I hope to be substantially under the minimum, meaning, we all hope, Mike, right? We all hope to be substantially under.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
KEILAR: More than 122,000 Americans have died in the last few months. This is more than every war since the start of the Korean War combined. And the President barely mentions them or their families. He doesn’t even acknowledge the collective loss of the nation. Instead, he turns the pandemic into a racist punchline for his rallygoers to cheer. The President is focused more on sending troops to protect statues of dead Confederate generals than on protecting American lives. Sources say he personally asked to restore the only Confederate statue in the nation’s capital as we, America, are in the middle of a massive racial reckoning. And he’s not the only one in denial. Local leaders are abdicating their responsibility to the people who elected them as well. A month ago, as New York was dealing with its peak in the coronavirus outbreak there, the Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, was lecturing states and the media for not opening up fast enough and for warning Americans about the life and death risk of the virus.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): Any insinuation otherwise is just typical partisan narrative trying to be spun and part of the reason is that because you’ve got a lot of people in your profession who wax poetically for weeks and weeks about how Florida was going to be just like New York. Wait two weeks, Florida’s going to be next. Just like Italy, wait two weeks. Well, hell, we’re eight weeks away from that and it hasn’t happened. Not only do we have a lower death rate…well, we have way lower deaths, generally, we have a lower death rate than the Acela corridor, D.C., everyone up there. We have a lower rate…death rate than the Midwest, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio. But even in our region, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida has the lower death rate. And I was the number one landing spot from tens of thousands of people leaving the number one hot zone in the world to come to my state. So, we’ve succeeded and I think that people just don’t want to recognize it because it challenges their narrative, it challenges their assumption, so they got to try to find a boogie man.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KEILAR: That was a month ago. And now, New York’s cases have fallen dramatically. Today, the lowest number of hospitalizations of the entire pandemic, and in Florida, they’re hitting new records. Why doesn’t the President appear to care about all of this? Well, maybe it’s because, according to the man that he hired to be his National Security Advisor, the President looks at everything through the prism of his re-election. So, he believes as long as the economy is reopened, despite the risks, that helps him, no matter how many plant workers or frontline employees get infected and possibly die. The most tragic part of all of this is that much of this heartbreak could have been avoided and much can still be avoided because we are still at the beginning of this pandemic. We have the best medicine in the world. Other countries traditionally model themselves after America. But right now, the United States is a cautionary tale. I want to bring in our Senior Political Analyst, John Avlon. It is…you know, looking at this deliberate negligence by the President of the United States in the middle of this deadly pandemic, I think this is…this is one of the things that will stand out the most about his presidency when history judges it. What are his advisers telling him, John?
JOHN AVLON: His advisers keep trying to get him to focus on…on the things that could unite the nation, to be more proactive. Obviously, Trumpland is, is, is, is fractured itself along many lines. But if the President’s number one priority is re-election, then everything he is doing in confronting this crisis is totally counterproductive to this goal because the country’s crying out for unifying leadership. Every President since Washington has tried to marshal the forces of the office to unite the nation; focus on what unites us, not what divides us, except this President. And it’s a matter of instinct. It’s who he is.
KEILAR: Yeah, it, it, it is instinctual. You can see that in how he’s reacting to all of this.
