Not long after President Trump and the coronavirus task force concluded the heated press conference in the White House briefing room on Friday, CNN host John King kicked off the network’s likely obsession over one moment: Trump’s argument with NBC White House correspondent Peter Alexander. King’s first reaction was to curse out the President, uncensored, and on live TV by calling it a “bullshit attack.”
As NewsBusters reported previously, Alexander’s question was an underhanded attempt to accuse the President of spreading “false hope” in a time of crisis. As things got heated, Trump responded by accurately noting Alexander was engaging in sensationalism.
“I sat in that room for just shy of 10 years. It was a perfectly valid question. What he did to Alexander is reprehensible,” King self-righteously declared as he introduced CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins.
Calling what happened a “Trump trademark,” King lashed out and cursed out the President. “It was striking that this came this, forgive me, bullshit attack on fake news came just moments after the Secretary of State said the American people have to be careful about where they get their information and go to sources they can trust,” he decried.
Further trying to defend Alexander, King suggested: “That was a 100 percent legitimate question with no hype, no shade, no bias. He just wanted to attack.”
When it was Collins’ turn to speak, she opined about how others responded differently to the same question:
Yeah, and we’re living in a pandemic and people have questions and they want to hear messages from the president of the United States. And so, that was a question that was posed to him and that's how he answered it.
And we should note that just a few moments ago, the Vice President was asked the same question. He responded very differently, instead of telling Americans to be vigilant. He did not have any issues with that question in the way that the President did.
She failed to provide evidence of how the question was asked to Vice President Pence.
Sometime later, chief political correspondent Dana Bash parroted King and called the “attack” “trademark Trump.” Bash noted she had received criticism for saying Trump was being a good leader earlier in the week. But took it back, arguing:
He did the opposite today in a very, very big way. Our job as reporters in any atmosphere is to call balls and strikes and to call it as we see it and the reality of what's happening. Well, today was a strike and that is an understatement. It is reprehensible for the president in any circumstance to lash out at a reporter…
Without evidence, Bash also suggested Alexander was an “objective reporter.”
Bringing a taste of reality back to the situation, Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume took to Twitter to take on Never-Trumper and Dispatch senior editor David French, who also defended Alexander. “Legitimate question my a**. It was the kind of bullsh*t gotcha question which hack WH reporters have been asking for decades.…” he wrote.
The transcript is below, click "expand' to read:
CNN’s Right Now
March 20, 2020
1:31:10 p.m. Eastern(…)
JOHN KING: I sat in that room for just shy of 10 years. It was a perfectly valid question. What he did to Alexander is reprehensible. The American people are looking for answers. They do want hope, they do want support, Mr. President. That was a very fair question.
Our Kaitlan Collins is in the briefing room, right now. She was there for that contentious briefing. Kaitlan, this is a Trump trademark. This was a Trump trademark. It was striking that this came this, forgive me, bullshit attack on fake news came just moments after the Secretary of State said the American people have to be careful about where they get their information and go to sources they can trust. I get there are times of disagreements, there are times contention between politicians and reporters. That was a 100 percent legitimate question with no hype, no shade, no bias. He just wanted to attack.
KAITLAN COLLINS: Yeah, and we’re living in a pandemic and people have questions and they want to hear messages from the president of the United States. And so, that was a question that was posed to him and that's how he answered it.
And we should note that just a few moments ago, the Vice President was asked the same question. He responded very differently, instead of telling Americans to be vigilant. He did not have any issues with that question in the way that the President did.
Of course, that comes as the President, you know, had been facing this initial criticism over how his administration has responded to the coronavirus. And that is why you have seen him coming out here very day this week trying to put a public face on the response to this. And so, that’s I just raised the questions, you know, it that really what the President should be focusing on when there are questions here about testing, ventilators, masks. So many questions that Americans actually about.
(…)
