Try as they might to memory hole their disdain on Thursday for the Trump administration’s reopening guidelines, CNN rallied around them on Tuesday after leaving the White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing in order to spend over 12 minutes engaging in their usual bomb-throwing, partisan gibberish, and masochism on what could await us in the pandemic.
With Situation Room host Wolf Blitzer at the helm, panelists attacked Dr. Deborah Birx for not lashing out at Governor Brian Kemp (R-GA) for reopening parts of his state’s economy, and President Trump for “gaslighting” reporters about supporters protesting these lockdown measures that have put millions at a breaking point. And Trump’s immigration executive order? That’s “a distraction.”
Blitzer broke away from the briefing to gloat to Dr. Sanjay Gupta he found it “very, very intriguing that” Birx seemed to have been “totally disagreeing with” Kemp.
Gupta fretted that Birx “was disagreeing as politely as we could” and defended the guidelines as an absolutely necessity.
He later invoked CDC Director Robert Redfield warning the virus could be worse this fall as a way of implicitly lobbying for a continued lockdown (and thus continued economic and mental suffering).
The CNN medical expert cited the CNN-hailed Harvard study about America staying closed until 2022 and even though he said he doesn’t “think it is going to be that long by any means….you're starting to hear the same sort of message from I think lots of different places.” We’ll take that as a yes.
In contrast to this rampant masochism, The First’s Steve Krakauer stated Sunday in his indispensable newsletter: “Our media coverage is best when it tells us what's happening - and maybe letting in some optimism during the crisis. Report the facts, wherever they lead - even if it's to a light at the end of the tunnel.” Of course, that’s not happening.
Back on CNN, chief political analyst Gloria Borger jabbed Birx for not being as outraged as they were about Georgia. She complained that she “understand[s] the need to kind of be correct here and not attack people, etcetera, but I think when people are looking for straight answers…and I think that an answer would have been…I’m not so sure I would do this.”
Borger added that she “could have been a lot stronger to these communities” in decrying Kemp because lives depend on it, but she didn’t.
Then it was time for chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta, who was, as usual, unglued in being both unsympathetic toward protesters who’ve reached a breaking point and opposing immigration restrictions (click “expand”):
BLITZER: You know, our chief White House correspondent is with us as well, Jim Acosta. Jim, the President using this moment with the coronavirus pandemic to announce a 60-day suspension of immigration into the United States.
ACOSTA: Ah, that’s right, Wolf and that appeared to a lot of people to be a distraction last night. It may just be a distraction at the end of the day….[S]o this has come off I think as largely a distraction. But getting back to what Gloria and Sanjay were just saying a few moments ago, I mean, I think it does have to be said at this point that the President appears to be giving the green light to these protesters who were at these demonstrations outside state houses around the country. The President was absolutely just gaslighting people there in the briefing room just a few moments ago, Wolf, when he said these protesters are practicing social distancing. They're just not. The President, you know, said a week ago when they released the new guidelines that if he saw any governor who was doing something that he disagreed with, that he would come down on that governor. That is not happening with these governors who are racing ahead of the administration’s guidelines in opening up quickly like Governor Kemp is in Georgia and so it appears that when, you know, the president is going to sound off on these governors it is when they're not opening up quickly enough and, you know, and just to add to that, when the President is sending protesters to the state houses to demonstrate against social distancing, that is putting pressure on the state houses, that’s putting pressure on those governments to reopen[.]
CNN’s Daniel Dale next insisted that, based on a Pew poll, Americans are willing to stay locked down and continue suffering until only God knows because only about a third of respondents are concerned about reopening “too slowly.”
Blitzer and Gupta closed out the hour by insisting that they don’t know a single health official who supports Kemp (click “expand”):
BLITZER: I want to go back to Sanjay. Sanjay, you live in Georgia and you’re very close to what is going on. The CDC is headquartered in Atlanta. I haven't spoken to any medical experts who thinks that the governor of Georgia is making the right decision by opening these businesses.
GUPTA: I haven't either, Wolf and I want to agree strongly with what Gloria said as well. Now is not the time for waffling. Now is not the time to be equivocating on this stuff. Now is the time for honesty and it can be tough sometimes to --- to lay out the honest facts about this, but it is that important that people hear this and they hear it in a very, very clear way. What Ambassador Birx said when asked about Georgia is, basically, look. We've put out these guidelines. We’ve made it as clear to use as possible. We're still seeing outbreaks. I don't know how you do it. I think, again, as Gloria said, Ambassador Birx, who is, you know, a member of the Coronavirus Task Force, I think probably just needs to say, look. That's a bad idea. We shouldn't be doing this. We're seriously worried that people might get infected who otherwise would not. People might get hospitalized who otherwise would not. People might even die who otherwise would not. These --- I don't enjoy saying this stuff, Wolf. But I think the honesty is really important here.
If Blitzer and Gupta had wanted to show honesty, they would have gone outside their bubbles and read pieces like this one from Erick Erickson about Georgia’s numbers, and another by Erickson about how Kemp hasn’t been shooting from the hip.
In addition, former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer tweeted and Krakauer wrote (in his Monday newsletter) that Democratic governors like Jared Polis (CO) and Gretchen Whitmer (MI) have indicated they’ll ease off their stay-at-home orders. But they have avoided such scorn leveled at the likes of Kemp and Henry McMaster (SC) plus local officials in Jacksonville, Florida.
Fortunately for the former group, they’ll never face scowling lectures from Acosta, Borger, Gupta, or anyone else at CNN or their comrades for that matter.
To see the relevant transcript from CNN’s The Situation Room on April 21, click “expand.”
CNN’s The Situation Room
April 21, 2020
6:47 p.m. EasternWOLF BLITZER: Sanjay, we heard something very, very intriguing from Dr. Deborah Birx, who’s the coronavirus response coordinator on what is going on where you are in Georgia right now. The governor saying that, this coming Friday, they’re going open up tattoo parlors, hair salons, nail salons, massage parlors, and she said she doesn't know how they can do that, and the same time, maintain the guidelines of social distancing, which requires people to be, what, at least six feet apart. This sounds like Dr. Birx is totally disagreeing with the governor of Georgia.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA: She was disagreeing as politely as we could, I think. She said, look – you know, she said this. I wrote this down. We have put out on the guidelines. We’ve made it as clear to use as possible, the data. We are still seeing outbreaks. I don't know how people could actually do these things and maintain social distance. It is the governor's choice. Maybe they’ll get creative. President trump was then asked the same thing regarding Georgia and he said he’s going to be talking to Governor Kemp later on and said I don’t know either, maybe they will be with doing testing in all these places. I think he is referring to hair salons and the nail salons and things like before people are utilizing the services. We know that’s not happening. People are not getting tested before they go in a place of business. So, it was --- it was very interesting to hear how they talked about this. Still saying it's up to the governors. They can decide, but we provided the guidelines, we provided the data. If they’re going to this sort of thing, open up their businesses, they have to explain their rationale for doing so because it doesn’t coincide with any of the guidelines we put out. Guidelines were designed to try to create a decision where it was safest to try and open up some of the businesses. Knowing well that no matter when it happens, Wolf, when the businesses start to open, there will likely be some rate of increase of infection, but right now, it's so early, we --- we --- the numbers have not been going down and there is not the infrastructure in place. So it was a polite and very clear remark about Ambassador Birx's thoughts on reopening things here in Georgia.
BLITZER: Yeah, and the other headline, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, as far as Dr. Birx being very polite to her colleague, the head of the CDC, Robert Redfield, suggesting in this Washington Post interview that a second wave of the coronavirus coming in the fall or winter could be even more deadly than what we’re all going through right now and, at one point, she said I don’t know how that could be more deadly than what’s going on in New York, for example. She was also polite, but seemed to disagree with his assessment.
GUPTA: Yeah, she did. I caught that as well, Wolf. I think that was more sort of an effort by her to just say, look. We’re still in the throes of this right now, we’re still in the middle of this first wave. So, let's not be diminishing that or minimizing that in any way. But you know, Dr. Redfield has sort of alluded to this in the past and so has Dr. Fauci. The idea that if you look at how things sort of have, you know, played out this time the coronavirus outbreak came in the United States sort of came as flu season was starting to trail off a bit and that may have been helpful. The concern is if they both arrive at the same time in the fall, they start to peak at the same time, that could be, you know, very significant for hospitals in terms of how they would care for these patients. We keep talking about ventilators, for example, Wolf, and saying, hey. Maybe we didn't need the ventilators, you know and maybe we didn't need them as much for this first wave. But the concern is that the second wave when you're getting so many patients from both flu and coronavirus at the same time, you might, likely would need a lot of these resources again, ventilators, personal protective equipment, testing, tracing. All of the things that we've been talking about for some time. Those --- those requirements are not going to go away until we, you know, have something like a vaccine probably. So, you know, again, we --- we've heard this a few times in different ways. Today was perhaps the most stark representation of that the way Dr. Redfield put it, but I think this information has been out there. Maybe we have to social distance a lot longer than we realized, at least intermittently. You remember the Harvard study, Wolf, that said maybe we'd have to do this until the year 2022. You know, I don't think it is going to be that long by any means, but --- but you're starting to hear the same sort of message from I think lots of different places, Wolf.
BLITZER: You know, it's interesting. Gloria Borger is with us as well. Gloria, what also jumped out at me was the way the President once again was defending the protests that are going on right now against all the social distancing ---
GLORIA BORGER: Oh yeah.
BLITZER: --- insisting, and it is not true if you take a look at the pictures and video, that these people are separating themselves, 6 feet apart, they’re not close together. We are showing pictures right now. They're pretty close together, they’re not wearing masks. They don't have any gloves. Some are wearing masks but not many are wearing masks, at least in the images we're showing our viewers right now. The President was basically defending their right to do so. They have a right to do so. Dr. Redfield earlier said it's not very helpful.
BORGER: That's right. The President said, you know, I’ve watched some of the protests on television. They're separated. There is space in between them. They're doing social distancing and we've watched a lot of these protests. Maybe some of the protesters are, but I don't know what pictures he's looking at, but a lot of the video that we've looked at shows that they're not doing social distancing and again, it is this kind of mixed message. Don't worry. Don't pay attention to the guidelines that we have offered you from the administration. And you know, I want to add one thing to what Sanjay was saying about Dr. Birx. I understand the need to kind of be correct here and not attack people, etcetera, but I think when people are looking for straight answers from the medical community, she was trying to be creative, right, as you put it, and I think that an answer would have been, look. If I were the governor of that state, I’m not so sure I would do this. Look at their --- look at their --- look at their curve. Let's see where their curve is. Our guidelines call for downward trend over two weeks and she shied away from doing that and the President indicated that he is going to talk the Georgia governor about the opening of beauty salons, etcetera, but I think in this circumstance and maybe I'm wrong, Sanjay, and maybe, you know, maybe there is a need to kind of waffle a little bit on this, but I thought that, in a way, she could have been a lot stronger to these communities and say, look. We didn't put these guidelines out there for nothing. We spent a lot of time on this. We're trying to help you save lives in your communities.
BLITZER: You know, our chief White House correspondent is with us as well, Jim Acosta. Ji, the President using this moment with the coronavirus pandemic to announce a 60-day suspension of immigration into the United States.
JIM ACOSTA: Ah, that’s right, Wolf and that appeared to a lot of people to be a distraction last night. It may just be a distraction at the end of the day. The President was careful to note that farmers are not going to be affected by this. The temporary workers coming into this country to work on those farms are not going to be covered under this executive order that’s going to affect people, essentially applying for green cards right now, and keep in mind a lot of these offices are not open for green card, you know, people who want to get green cards to stay in this country as a permanent resident, legal permanent resident and so this has come off I think as largely a distraction. But getting back to what Gloria and Sanjay were just saying a few moments ago, I mean, I think it does have to be said at this point that the President appears to be giving the green light to these protesters who were at these demonstrations outside state houses around the country. The President was absolutely just gaslighting people there in the briefing room just a few moments ago, Wolf, when he said these protesters are practicing social distancing. They're just not. The President, you know, said a week ago when they released the new guidelines that if he saw any governor who was doing something that he disagreed with, that he would come down on that governor. That is not happening with these governors who are racing ahead of the administration’s guidelines in opening up quickly like Governor Kemp is in Georgia and so it appears that when, you know, the president is going to sound off on these governors it is when they're not opening up quickly enough and, you know, and just to add to that, when the President is sending protesters to the state houses to demonstrate against social distancing, that is putting pressure on the state houses, that’s putting pressure on those governments to reopen. And so you know, he is sort of attacking this from a couple different vantage points, putting pressure on the governors and then really giving the green light to his own supporters to demonstrate against these state houses where they're not opening up quickly, Wolf.
BLITZER: Yeah, our fact checker Daniel Dale is with us as well. All right. Daniel, you were listening. What did you think?
DANIEL DALE: There was a whole lot, Wolf. Our colleagues have covered the matter of these protests where people are very much not distancing. There was also talk about tattoo parlors, hair salons in Georgia that are being reopened and the President said as an example that you just gave, are they doing testing before they go in? We have to find out. There is no plan for widespread testing outside tattoo parlors and hair salons in Georgia. The plan is to reopen them as normal so the President posed this as a question rather than a declaration. But no, it's not happening Wolf, the President also talked about people being anxious to get back to work, how we can't break the country, have to go back. Of course, people do want to make a living, they want to go back but I think it is also worth noting that all of the polling has shown that people are more worried about reopening too quickly than too slowly. We have a pew poll this week saying 66 percent were more concerned about reopening too fast. Only 32 percent concerned about too slow. So, when we do cover the protests, and we should, we should note that they represent a minority position. Wolf, the President also said the testing is good in some cases and in some cases, it's not. It's also worth noting that it is the consensus of experts that testing is critical to safely reopen the country. Of course, some people believe it’s more essential than others and there are subjective differences there. But there’s no belief that testing is not good in some cases. This is factually important.
BLITZER: I want to go back to Sanjay. Sanjay, you live in Georgia and you’re very close to what is going on. The CDC is headquartered in Atlanta. I haven't spoken to any medical experts who thinks that the governor of Georgia is making the right decision by opening these businesses.
GUPTA: I haven't either, Wolf and I want to agree strongly with what Gloria said as well. Now is not the time for waffling. Now is not the time to be equivocating on this stuff. Now is the time for honesty and it can be tough sometimes to --- to lay out the honest facts about this, but it is that important that people hear this and they hear it in a very, very clear way. What Ambassador Birx said when asked about Georgia is, basically, look. We've put out these guidelines. We’ve made it as clear to use as possible. We're still seeing outbreaks. I don't know how you do it. I think, again, as Gloria said, Ambassador Birx, who is, you know, a member of the Coronavirus Task Force, I think probably just needs to say, look. That's a bad idea. We shouldn't be doing this. We're seriously worried that people might get infected who otherwise would not. People might get hospitalized who otherwise would not. People might even die who otherwise would not. These --- I don't enjoy saying this stuff, Wolf. But I think the honesty is really important here. I think even this issue of hydroxychloroquine came up and there was a study that came out today showing it doesn't seem to be beneficial. It was a small study. They say maybe it caused a higher death rate in people who used it. When Dr. Hahn out of the FDA was asked about it, he said, well doctors should take that into consideration when prescribing this medication. Take this into consideration that a drug may cause increased death rates? I mean, look. I think we need to be more honest right now. It is that important, Wolf.
BLITZER: It certainly is.
