White House Coronavirus Task Force briefings returned for what one could call a second season on Tuesday and, once again, CNN’s Situation Room decided that such briefings were again a waste, entirely political, and featured President Trump speaking from notes who not only doesn’t care about the American people, but has refused to scare Americans into crippling fear over the virus.
Host Wolf Blitzer set the scene after President Trump ended the briefing (which CNN carried less than half of), telling chief White House correspondent and carnival barker Jim Acosta that the Trump only spoke in “a different” and more serious “tone....because of his low poll numbers in all of these national polls.”
In other words, Wolf wants Americans to think the President didn’t adopt a serious tone because he cares about any of us, but because it’ll help his poll numbers.
Acosta disagreed with Bltizer about Trump’s “solo performance,” huffing with faux seriousness and without evidence Trump “was downplaying the severity of the resurgence that we're seeing right now and he's painting a rosy picture, Wolf, of his own administration's response.”
He added that the U.S. hasn’t “flatten[ed] the curve and mov[ed] in the right direction” like Europe and Asia have, so one would hope that dictators and less-than-truthful governments like Xi Jinping’s China see Acosta’s remarks.
After more belly-aching, Acosta dismissed Trump’s remarks and insinuated he didn’t mean what he said because he was “teleprompter Trump” (click “expand”):
I do think that there were moments, and, again, Wolf, this was sort of like teleprompter Trump. He was reading from the notes quite a bit during this press conference. He was obviously given these notes by people like Dr. Deborah Birx who was waiting in the wings outside the briefing room, so he was saying the right thing at times telling people not to go to bars, telling people to wear masks. I mean, something that the genie is out of the bottle on the mask issue, Wolf
(....)
But at the same time, Wolf, the overall tone, I think, was a President still not dealing with the reality of how serious the situation is in this country. He was talking about embers fires and maybe some big fires when, you know, there was — I think you would call a raging inferno in some states around the country, look at the situation in south Florida and other states. This is a situation that is spiraling out of control for health care workers who are dealing with this on the front lines...Well, why doesn't the President want to have people like Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci in there when they can pass on the reliable information that can help people get through this crisis? The President obviously wants the stage to himself.
While speaking to chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Blitzer made sure to inform viewers amidst their breathless fear-mongering about future pandemic ruin that “all of us hope...there will be a vaccine.” The fact that Blitzer (or any of his colleagues) made such a statement signified how poisonous the press have become.
Chief political correspondent Dana Bash joined in, slamming Trump’s 26-minute availability due to all “what we didn’t hear” concerning schools and testing, touting the continued indefinite suspension of any and all in-person schooling in the deep blue, wealthy D.C. suburbs and thus implicitly called for others to follow (click “expand”):
BASH: [J]ust before we came on, Montgomery County schools outside of D.C. announced that they were going to go fully online, same with Fairfax County and why is that? Because they don't have the tools to get ahead and send their kids to school, primarily because of the lack of testing. They don't know who has it and who doesn't. That is such a huge, huge problem and so we didn't hear that. We didn't hear what the federal government is going to do, led by the President of the United States.
BLITZER: Yeah. Montgomery County, Maryland, outside of Washington, D.C., remote learning for the fall semester.
BASH: Right.
BLITZER: Fairfax, Virginia, outside Washington D.C. Remote learning coming up as well.
CNN’s panic-heaving and refusal to encourage the American people through this coronavirus pandemic was sponsored by Bombas, Pure Wick, and Select Quote. Go here to help fight back against the liberal media.
To see the relevant CNN transcript from July 21, click “expand.”
CNN’s The Situation Room
July 21, 2020
5:37 p.m. EasternWOLF BLITZER: A couple of important points he made. He said unfortunately — he said things are going to get worse before they get better. That's a different tone than clearly he's been suggesting for quite a while and the exact quote, “it will probably unfortunately get worse before it gets better.” He was also very determined to make the point that he wants people to wear masks and to engage social distancing and we insisted that was his position all along, but we know it hasn't been his position all along. For months, he was even at times ridiculing wear a mask and as far as social distancing is concerned, we all remember a few weeks ago that — that the Trump campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where there were several thousand people who were not engaging in social distancing and certainly weren't wearing masks. Jim Acosta, you've been listening very closely to what the President says. I assume you heard a different tone coming from the President today, probably in part because of his low poll numbers in all of these national polls.
JIM ACOSTA: To some extent, yes, Wolf. I mean, he doesn't have the band back together. This was more of a solo performance, but the song I think basically remains the same. The President was downplaying the severity of the resurgence that we're seeing right now and he's painting a rosy picture, Wolf, of his own administration's response to the coronavirus saying that we've done much better here in the U.S. than other countries around the world. That's just not really the case. We — perhaps better than some countries, but as we are seeing in Europe and parts of Asia where those countries are flattening the curve and moving in the right direction, the United States is just simply not. I think there were other inconsistencies throughout this press briefing, Wolf. At one point the President was talking about how he's okay with masks and uses them from time to time when he needs to, but when he was at the Trump Hotel here in D.C. last night for a fundraiser, he was caught on camera not wearing a mask. When he had a rally Tulsa earlier this year, there were thousands and thousands of people there not wearing masks and speaking of that, at one point during this briefing, the President seemed to be reading off of notes, you know, throughout this press conference, but at one point he said he wants people to stay away from crowded bars, and so on. Well, what about crowded rallies that he would like to have all around the country? So, it was just one inconsistency after another, Wolf and speaking of inconsistency, there was a glaring one during this press conference when the President was asked how many times he's tested a day for the coronavirus. Earlier in the day, the White House Press Secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, tried to downplay the importance of the President wearing masks saying he's tested all the time and said at one point that he's tested multiple times a day and then the President was asked about that during this press briefing and the President says that that’s not the case. He's tested maybe once a day, not more times than once a day. And so I think that calls into question some of the information that we're getting from the press secretary. She should know whether or not the President is tested multiple times a day. Maybe the President misspoke there, but he seemed to say that the press secretary was not correct when she made that statement earlier today, Wolf.
BLITZER: Yeah, he — he said he gets tested every two or three days as opposed to multiple times a day, which his press secretary suggested earlier in the day. He did say, you know, we're imploring young Americans to avoid packed bars and other crowded indoor gatherings. “Be safe and be smart.” That's the first time I've heard the President say that. Have you heard him say something like that before?
ACOSTA: No and I do think that there were moments, and, again, Wolf, this was sort of like teleprompter Trump. He was reading from the notes quite a bit during this press conference. He was obviously given these notes by people like Dr. Deborah Birx who was waiting in the wings outside the briefing room, so he was saying the right thing at times telling people not to go to bars, telling people to wear masks. I mean, something that the genie is out of the bottle on the mask issue, Wolf, how many meetings, city council meetings and how many altercations have we seen around the country now where people are just exploding with anger about not wanting to wear masks and now all of a sudden, towards the end of July when the President's in hot water with his poll numbers, he's now telling the American people to wear masks? The toothpaste may just be out of the tube on that one, but yes, from time to time, Wolf, the President was trying to say some of the right things, it seemed listening to his performance in there. But at the same time, Wolf, the overall tone, I think, was a President still not dealing with the reality of how serious the situation is in this country. He was talking about embers fires and maybe some big fires when, you know, there was — I think you would call a raging inferno in some states around the country, look at the situation in South Florida and other states. This is a situation that is spiraling out of control for health care workers who are dealing with this on the front lines and so, Wolf, I — you know, he was asked at one point where's Dr.Birx, where's Dr. Fauci? And he said, well, Dr. Birx is waiting in the other room. Well, why doesn't the President want to have people like Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci in there when they can pass on the reliable information that can help people get through this crisis? The President obviously wants the stage to himself.
(....)
BLITZER: And he did say at one point, and I'm looking at my notes. He keeps saying this: this virus will eventually disappear. He said months ago it's going to appear very quickly. Now he says it will disappear. The virus will disappear. He says that after he says it will get worse before it gets better and disappear. It's going to disappear at some point, but that could be years from now, right?
(....)
BLITZER: [W]e all hope eventually it will disappear, but this is going to presumably get worse, a lot worse before it gets better, unless there's a vaccine, unless there's some major therapeutics. He did say, Sanjay, the vaccines are coming a lot sooner than anyone thought and then he said by years. All of us hope, and — and — and Dr. Fauci says he's cautiously optimistic maybe by the end of this year, early next year there will be a vaccine but there's no guarantee.
(....)
DANA BASH: Well, what stood out mostly to me is what we didn't hear and Sanjay just touched a bit on this when he talked about testing, but even more broadly. You know, here we are many months into this pandemic and we have seen kind of twisting and turning from the White House and more broadly the federal government and what their response should and shouldn't be, but here we are with the President actually saying it in a very somber way. It's going to get worse before it gets better. Okay. So what's your plan? How are you going to address this in a holistic, broad way? And we didn't hear that. Testing obviously is number one and that is preventing places even like where we are in D.C. The numbers are relative to other places where there are hot spots, relatively manageable and low, I should say, and yet just before we came on Montgomery County schools outside of D.C. announced that they were going to go fully online, same with Fairfax County and why is that? Because they don't have the tools to get ahead and send their kids to school, primarily because of the lack of testing. They don't know who has it and who doesn't. That is such a huge, huge problem and so we didn't hear that. We didn't hear what the federal government is going to do, led by the President of the United States.
BLITZER: Yeah. Montgomery County, Maryland, outside of Washington, D.C., remote learning for the fall semester.
BASH: Right.
BLITZER: Fairfax, Virginia, outside Washington D.C. Remote learning coming up as well. Daniel Dale is with us as well, our CNN reporter and fact checker is with us. Did you hear anything that required some fact checking, Daniel?
DANIEL DALE: As always, Wolf, I did. The President, for one, repeated some of the false claims when he was doing these back in March and April. For example, he claimed that he inherited “empty cupboards” of ventilators. That’s not true, Wolf. His own administration has confirmed to me that he inherited about 19,000 ventilators from the Obama administration. He also repeated his claim that he banned travel from China and from Europe when, in fact, his travel restrictions contained multiple exemptions. He even strayed off topic for one of his favorite lies, claiming that he’s the one who got the Veterans Choice Health Care program passed. That was a law that was signed into law by Barack Obama in 2014. I think the other important point, Wolf, is the distinction, as Jim touched on, between scripted Trump or what we call, teleprompter Trump and the Trump that we saw in the Q&A. So, scripted Trump was at, least a bit more factual than he’s been recently. For example, he acknowledged what was, I think, for the first time, that we do have a concerning rise in cases in the Sun Belt. Previously he just dismissed that as the result of great testing. But when we got to the Q&A, you know, he was reminded in June he was saying this virus would disappear. He again just said it would disappear. As Sanjay said, that’s — that’s not quite the case. He — he again asked about testing, he said, well, we’re doing way more than other countries. We have lower mortality than other countries. The U.S. is simply, factually doing worse than its peer countries, Wolf, not better.
BLITZER: Yeah, you’re absolutely right.
