After President Trump took time during Thursday’s coronavirus press conference to criticize the blatantly biased media coverage of his administration’s response to the global pandemic, Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd anchored an NBC News special report and decried how “the President’s own personal grievances seemed to dominate” the briefing.
“It amazes me when I read The Wall Street Journal, which is always so negative. It amazes me when I read The New York Times, it’s not even – I barely read it. You know, we don’t distribute it in the White House anymore, and the same thing with The Washington Post,” Trump declared during the presser.
The President particularly called out the effort by liberal media outlets to create negative narratives:
They use different slogans and different concepts for me almost every week, trying to catch something. Last week, it was, “Oh, chaos.” You see me, there’s no chaos. No chaos, I’m the one telling everybody to be calm. There’s no chaos in the White House. We have unbelievable professionals. It’s really – I think I came up with the term, I hope I came up with the term – but it is fake news. It’s more than fake news, it’s corrupt news.
He also called out reporters rushing to defend China from criticism: “They are siding with China, they are doing things they shouldn’t be doing.”
Minutes later, after the press conference concluded, Todd whined: “President Trump led it and you’ll be forgiven if you sort of have forgotten what were the news headlines out of it, the President’s own personal grievances seemed to dominate the large chunk of that.”
Turning to White House correspondent Kristen Welker a short time later, Todd further complained:
I have to say, that was candidate Donald Trump at times, it feels like the grievances are back. Whatever focus he was on being the war time president over the last couple of days seemed to go out the window. He seems to be just looking for reasons to be upset about things. What – and he certainly seems to not want to take any accountability on the field – on the testing debacle that clearly has held back our response.
The entire business model of the liberal media during Trump’s presidency has been “just looking for reasons to be upset about things.”
Here is a transcript of Trump’s March 19 remarks and Todd’s reaction:
12:43 PM ET
(...)
DONALD TRUMP: It amazes me when I read the things that I read. It amazes me when I read The Wall Street Journal, which is always so negative. It amazes me when I read The New York Times, it’s not even – I barely read it. You know, we don’t distribute it in the White House anymore, and the same thing with The Washington Post. Because you see, I know the truth. And people out there in the world, they really don’t know the truth, they don’t know what it is.
They use different slogans and different concepts for me almost every week, trying to catch something. Last week, it was, “Oh, chaos.” You see me, there’s no chaos. No chaos, I’m the one telling everybody to be calm. There’s no chaos in the White House. We have unbelievable professionals. It’s really – I think I came up with the term, I hope I came up with the term – but it is fake news. It’s more than fake news, it’s corrupt news.
They write stories without calling anybody. They write a story today, I had a couple of stories where – they never call me. Ever. That I know of. At least, nobody tells me. They’ll write a story about me without even asking my opinion on something. It’s totally fake. I have never seen it.
I mean, there is a story in The Wall Street Journal today, you know, about how we’ve done. We’ve done a phenomenal job on this. The governors are even – even Gavin Newsom, who, you know, I’m usually fighting with over the fires and I think you do a different kind of a job in the forests and lots of things, we argue a lot. But Gavin Newsom’s been very, very generous. Andrew Cuomo’s been really very generous. I mean, they’re saying we’re doing a great job. And everybody’s saying it. Then you read a phony story in The Wall Street Journal.
The Washington Post is going wild lately, I don’t know what happened to them. I guess something happened, like we don’t call them back or whatever. But The Washington Post – these are very dishonest media sources. They’re very dishonest. And you know what, someday, hopefully in five years, I won’t be here and that’ll be fine. I will have done, I think, a great job. Because I don’t think anyone’s done as much in three and a half years as I’ve done, I don’t think, and the administration. This administration has done a great job.
But the press is very dishonest...They are siding with China, they are doing things they shouldn’t be doing. They’re siding with many others, China’s the least of it. Why they’re doing this, you’ll have to ask them. But if we had an honest media in this country, our country would be an even greater place.
(...)
12:49 PM ET
CHUCK TODD: Well, we just wrapped up today’s briefing from the coronavirus task force. President Trump led it and you’ll be forgiven if you sort of have forgotten what were the news headlines out of it, the President’s own personal grievances seemed to dominate the large chunk of that.
(...)
12:53 PM ET
TODD: Let me go to Kristen Welker. And Kristen, I have to say, that was candidate Donald Trump at times, it feels like the grievances are back. Whatever focus he was on being the war time president over the last couple of days seemed to go out the window. He seems to be just looking for reasons to be upset about things. What – and he certainly seems to not want to take any accountability on the field – on the testing debacle that clearly has held back our response.
KRISTEN WELKER: Incredibly defiant, Chuck, when I asked him about that and the clear lack of preparation when it comes to testing.
(...)
