Tag: coronavirus

Trump Defends Senators Under Fire for Pre-Corona Stock Dumps: They’re ‘Very Honorable People’

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During a Covid-19 press conference on Friday, President Donald Trump defended the Senators who dumped stocks in January, after a briefing on the coronavirus.

Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer asked the president, “are you concerned about members of congress that may have used information they learned on updates to sell stocks and profits of this?”

“I saw some names, I know all of them. I know everyone mentioned Dianne Feinstein, I guess, and a couple of others. I don’t know too much about what it is about, but I find them to all be very honorable people, that’s all I know, and they said they did nothing wrong. I find them, the whole group, very honorable,” Trump responded.

“So, the whole group would include Richard Burr, the head of the Intelligence Committee,  and it also would include Senator Kelly Loeffler, so the question is whether or not they should be investigated for that behavior?” Francesca Chambers, White House correspondent for McClatchy then asked the president.

Trump then attempted to place blame on Senator Dianne Feinstein — the lone Democrat of the five senators who dumped stocks.

“Well, it also includes Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat, you didn’t mention her name,” Trump remarked during the press conference. “Why didn’t you mention her name? I think she’s a really honorable person, by the way,”

“Any Senator?” Chambers pressed.

“I don’t know, because I would have to look at it. Possibly, but I find them to be honorable people,” Trump answered.

[Mediaite]

Dr. Fauci swiftly fact-checks Trump on COVID-19 testing shortages: ‘That is a reality that is happening now’

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Dr. Anthony Fauci fact-checked President Donald Trump’s claims about coronavirus testing.

The president insisted that he wasn’t hearing any complaints about Americans who have symptoms of COVID-19 but could not get tested, and Trump disagreed with Fauci’s earlier advice to test everyone to see who should remain in quarantine.

“I’m not hearing it,” Trump said. “We don’t want everybody to go out and get a test because there’s no reason for it.”

Another reporter came back to the topic less than three minutes later in the news conference, and asked Fauci whether testing availability was meeting public demand.

“I get the same calls that many of you get,” Fauci said. “Someone goes into a place who has a symptom and wants to get a test and for one reason or other, multiple logistic, technical, what have you — they can’t get it. That is a reality that is happening now. Is it the same as it was a few weeks ago? Absolutely not, because as the secretary and others have said, right now that we have the private sector involved the availability — not only just availability, but the implementation of the availability is getting better and better and better. Having said that, I understand and empathize with the people who rightfully are sayin, ‘I’m trying to get a test, and I can’t.’”

[Raw Story]

Trump Lashes Out at NBC News’ Peter Alexander Over Question About What to Tell ‘Scared Americans’

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President Donald Trump called an NBC News journalist a “terrible reporter” for asking a legitimate question about what the president would say to Americans feeling scared about the ongoing coronavirus pandemic that has claimed the lives of at least 194 people in the country.

“What do you say to Americans who are scared?” NBC News’ Peter Alexander asked on Friday. “There’ll be 200 dead, 14,000 who are sick, millions — as you witnessed — who are scared right now. What do you say to Americans watching you right now who are scared?”

“I say that you’re a terrible reporter,” Trump responded. “I think that’s a very nasty question, and I think it’s a very bad signal that you’re putting out to the American people. The American people are looking for answers and they’re looking for hope. And you’re doing sensationalism, and the same with NBC. … That’s really bad reporting, and you ought to get back to reporting instead of sensationalism.”

President Donald Trump called an NBC News journalist a “terrible reporter” for asking a legitimate question about what the president would say to Americans feeling scared about the ongoing coronavirus pandemic that has claimed the lives of at least 194 people in the country.

“What do you say to Americans who are scared?” NBC News’ Peter Alexander asked on Friday. “There’ll be 200 dead, 14,000 who are sick, millions — as you witnessed — who are scared right now. What do you say to Americans watching you right now who are scared?”

“I say that you’re a terrible reporter,” Trump responded. “I think that’s a very nasty question, and I think it’s a very bad signal that you’re putting out to the American people. The American people are looking for answers and they’re looking for hope. And you’re doing sensationalism, and the same with NBC. … That’s really bad reporting, and you ought to get back to reporting instead of sensationalism.”

[Yahoo News]

Media

Photo of Trump remarks shows ‘corona’ crossed out and replaced with ‘Chinese’ virus

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President Donald Trump on Thursday was photographed reading from notes at the daily coronavirus task force press conference where the word “corona” was crossed out and replaced with “Chinese” to described COVID-19.

The photograph, taken by a Washington Post photographer, showed the word crossed out in what appeared to be Sharpie and in the president’s own handwriting.

The image comes as Trump has ramped up his description of the coronavirus as a “Chinese virus” as he’s been questioned about whether he considers the label to be racist.

“It’s not racist at all,” Trump told reporters Wednesday. “It comes from China, that’s why.”

There has been significant public criticism of the term, which critics say will inflame anti-Asian sentiment aimed at Asian Americans and Asian American-owned businesses here in the U.S.

John C. Yang, president and executive director of Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC, told NBC Asian America that Trump’s use of the term could have a dangerous impact.

“I absolutely think that words used by him matter,” he said. “Certainly use of this term by him and others even in the last couple of weeks have led to a noticeable incline in hate incidents that we are seeing. I do think that there is a correlation.”

Administration officials have defended the term by pointing out that the Chinese government has in recent weeks attempted to blame the U.S. for the virus, which originated in the Wuhan region of China.

Since 2015, the World Health Organization has warned against giving outbreaks geographic or national labels in order “to minimize unnecessary negative effects on nations, economies and people.” Some prominent geographic or national labels from pandemics past, like Spanish Flu, have even been misnomers.

Amid increased criticism for his administration’s slow response to the outbreak, Trump has repeatedly highlighted his travel restrictions on China, which were instituted early on in the crisis.

“If people would have known about it, could have been stopped in place, it could have been stopped where it came from, China,” Trump told reporters Thursday in defending his administration’s efforts.

Congressional allies have risen to Trump’s defense amid the backlash. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas., told reporters Wednesday that “China is to blame” because the Chinese culture is “where people eat bats and snakes and dog and things like that.”

Cornyn’s comments, which were also met with backlash, referred to reports that the virus was likely to have originated in a Chinese “wet market.”

[NBC News]

Trump defends use of the term ‘China virus’

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President Donald Trump defended his use of the term “China virus” to describe Covid-19 on Tuesday, saying he uses the term because China tried to blame its spread on the American military.”I didn’t appreciate the fact that China was saying that our military gave it to them. Our military did not give it to anybody,” Trump said during a White House press briefing.”China was putting out information, which was false, that our military gave this to them. That was false. And rather than having an argument, I said I had to call it where it came from. It did come from China. So, I think it’s a very accurate term,” he said.

The President also pushed back at suggestions that using the term creates a stigma.

“I don’t think so. I think saying that our military gave it to them creates a stigma,” Trump said.CNN previously reported that a prominent Chinese official has promoted a conspiracy theory that the US military could have brought the novel coronavirus to China — and it did not originate in the Chinese city of Wuhan.Parts of Chinese social media, and even the country’s government, appear to have launched a concerted campaign to question the origin of the novel coronavirus, which has infected more than 170,000 people globally as of Tuesday midday, according to CNN’s case tracker.The first reported cases of the virus were in Wuhan, and scenes from the city in lockdown shocked the world. The lockdown gave an early indication for how seriously global authorities would need to combat the fast-spreading virus.

[CNN]

Reality

Some Chinese news outlets and officials have pushed the unfounded claim the American military gave China the coronavirus, but this is beyond petty to reciprocate.

Media

CBS Reporter: WH Official Called Coronavirus ‘Kung Flu’ to My Face Today

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A CBS News White House correspondent revealed Tuesday that an unnamed White House official referred to the deadly coronavirus as the “Kung-Flu” directly to her face. “Makes me wonder what they’re calling it behind my back,” Weijia Jiang wrote on Twitter.

Erick Erickson, a conservative evangelical radio host and pro-Trumper, wrote in response to Jiang’s tweet: “I don’t care that you are offended by ‘Kung Flu,’ ‘Wuhan virus,’ or ‘Chinese virus,’” adding, “I’m sorry you’re that sensitive and eager to embrace Chinese communist propaganda, but I don’t care.” President Trump and several of his Republican allies have repeatedly used terms such as the “Chinese Virus” and the “Wuhan Virus,” which have been condemned as xenophobic and racist. The World Health Organization renamed the virus “COVID-19” so that it is not associated with a group of people or a geographical location, which can lead to stigmatization. On Tuesday morning, the president said on Twitter that some states “are being hit hard by the Chinese Virus, some are not being hit practically at all.” 

[The Daily Beast]

Trump says he knew coronavirus was a pandemic ‘long before’ it was declared

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President Trump on Tuesday said that he realized that the coronavirus outbreak was a pandemic before the World Health Organization (WHO) labeled it as such last week.

“This is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic,” Trump said at a press conference with his coronavirus task force. “All you had to do was look at other countries.”

The president’s comments were in response to being asked if he agreed that his rhetoric surrounding the coronavirus become more reserved on Monday. Trump disagreed, saying that he always knew the outbreak was “serious.”

Trump’s answer immediately drew ire, with some pointing to a March 9 tweet of the president’s.

“The Fake News Media and their partner, the Democrat Party, is doing everything within its semi-considerable power (it used to be greater!) to inflame the CoronaVirus situation, far beyond what the facts would warrant,” Trump tweeted at the time.

Trump also previously characterized the virus as a Democratic “hoax.”

In the past week, the Trump administration has ramped up its efforts to combat the illness that has infected more than 5,600 Americans and caused more than 90 deaths.

Late last week, Trump declared the outbreak a national health emergency, which freed up billions of dollars of potential aid. During his press conference Tuesday, Trump said that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin would be meeting with Senate Republicans later in the day to talk about the third phase of an economic stimulus package aimed at helping the economic fallout that has been caused by COVID-19.

Numerous states have forced restaurants and bars to close in an attempt to stem the spread of the virus and called on Americans to work from home. The Trump administration on Monday recommended that people should avoid gatherings of more than 10 people.

[The Hill]

Trump health officials lie and deny that US rejected WHO diagnostic test

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Trump administration health officials on Tuesday defended the pace of diagnostic testing for the novel coronavirus while pushing back on criticism that the U.S. rejected a test from the World Health Organization (WHO).

The federal government has been criticized for not at least temporarily using the WHO test until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) created its own. While officials have acknowledged there are still not enough tests to meet demand, they denied refusing other tests.

“No one ever offered a test that we refused,” said Adm. Brett Giroir, assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services. “This was a research-grade test that was not approved, not submitted to the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] … there was a small number that we have greatly surpassed in a very short period of time.” 

The WHO test, which adopted a German test as its model, was developed soon after Chinese researchers publicly posted the genome of the coronavirus in January. It shipped millions of tests to countries around the world, but generally only those without the capability to develop their own.

The U.S. developed its own test around the same time, but manufacturing and quality control issues soon set it well behind the WHO. 

CDC officials acknowledged that one of the three components of the initial test were faulty, but it took weeks before the agency approved a workaround. 

Public health experts and some governors have also said bureaucratic red tape around approvals slowed the development of new tests in the U.S.

Administration health officials have been loosening regulations, and on Monday night the FDA said it would allow states to take responsibility for tests developed and used by laboratories in their states, without involving the federal government. 

Deborah Birx, a State Department official coordinating the White House coronavirus task force, told reporters that the testing delays were due to the rigorous scientific process involved in approving U.S. diagnostic tests.

“We were adamant about having a high quality test based on our commercial vendors,” Birx said. “Over the next few months you’ll begin to see that other tests that were utilized around the world were not of the same quality, resulting in false positives and potentially false negatives.”

President Trump then doubled down on the defense.

“So number one, nothing was offered, number two, it was a bad test. Otherwise, it was wonderful,” Trump said.

Congressional Democrats have demanded the administration answer questions about why the WHO test was not used, but have not received a response.

During the Democratic presidential debate on Sunday, former Vice President Joe Biden also called out the administration for its alleged refusal to use the WHO test. 

When asked on Tuesday about the remarks, Trump said Biden “made a mistake” by saying that the WHO offered test kits to the U.S. 

“I assume he’ll apologize,” Trump said.

[The Hill]

Trump Attacks ‘Failing’ Michigan Governor After She Hits ‘Mind-Boggling’ Coronavirus Response on MSNBC

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President Donald Trump attacked Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Twitter for “failing” to combat the coronavirus in her state after she claimed to have little federal support on MSNBC.

“Failing Michigan Governor must work harder and be much more proactive,” Trump wrote. “We are pushing her to get the job done. I stand with Michigan.”

“But we need the federal government to work. We need respirators and ventilators and personal protection equipment. We need more test kits and the resources to process those test kits in a quick expedited manner,” added the Governor.

When Ruhle asked, “Can you get [the tests] without federal support?” Whitmer responded, “No, no! We need federal support. Like I said, we’re pulling out all of the stops and reaching out to our partners in the private sector and we’re going to do everything we can to supplement but it’s not to the exclusion of federal support. We need the federal government to ramp up and get this done.”

[Mediaite]

Trump Bashes Cuomo For Wanting All States Treated Equally for ‘Chinese Virus’: ‘Keep Politics Out Of It’

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President Donald Trump is keeping his fight with New York Governor Andrew Cuomo going, tussling over how to address the coronavirus pandemic.

“Cuomo wants “all states to be treated the same.” But all states aren’t the same,” Trump tweeted, before using a name for the disease critics have slammed as racist. “Some are being hit hard by the Chinese Virus, some are being hit practically not at all. New York is a very big “hotspot”, West Virginia has, thus far, zero cases. Andrew, keep politics out of it….”

Trump’s tweet is a continuation of the swipes he launched on Cuomo after Monday’s teleconference between the president and state governors across the country. Cuomo has repeatedly expressed frustration that the federal government isn’t doing enough to respond to the virus, so Trump accused him of being the one who has to “do more.”

Cuomo fired back by saying “YOU have to do something! You’re supposed to be the President.” He also said he’d be “happy” to do Trump’s job if the president hands control of the Army Corps of Engineers over to him.

[Mediaite]

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