RTFri, 20 Mar 2020 04:32 UTC
© Reuters / Jonathan Ernst 19
US President Donald Trump eviscerated NBC's Peter Alexander during a coronavirus presser, chewing him out as a "terrible reporter" sending a "very bad signal" to Americans over what the reporter insisted was a softball question.
"What do you say to Americans who are watching you right now who are scared?" Alexander asked the president during a press conference on Friday, after questioning whether Trump's "impulse to put a positive spin on things may be giving Americans a false sense of hope" about a pair of not-yet-approved drugs being tested against coronavirus.
"I'd say that you're a terrible reporter," the president snapped, slamming the "very nasty question" and the "very bad signal" it sent to Americans. Trump proceeded to vent his spleen about NBC, its parent company Comcast ("I don't call it Comcast, I call it 'Con-cast'"), and the entire mainstream media apparatus that has made itself the bane of his presidency."The American people are looking for answers and they're looking for hope. And you're doing sensationalism," Trump continued, taking another whack at the "very bad reporting" the question (or more likely the reporter's previous question) apparently represented.
You ought to get back to reporting instead of sensationalism.
The presser saw Trump float the possibility of using experimental drugs to treat coronavirus, including remdesivir - a failed treatment for Ebola - and chloroquine, a malaria drug. Both are a long way from being administered to patients, though chloroquine at least is already in use in humans to treat the mosquito-borne illness.Some 14,250 Americans had been diagnosed with coronavirus and 216 had died as of Friday.
The conference was barely over before Alexander was on MSNBC
playing the wounded ingenue, as host Andrea Mitchell showered him in praise for "doing his job" and "making NBC proud."
"In TV terms we call this a softball," Alexander explained, pleading that he was just "trying to provide the president an opportunity to reassure the millions of Americans...to provide a sort of positive or uplifting message."
Alexander had his own theories about why the president had ripped him a new one, saying "it does sort of reveal a frustration, perhaps an anxiety about his own political prospects, and about a situation that's hard to keep in control as we witness it continue to spiral at this time."
He noted that Vice President Mike Pence had given rather a different answer, responding with "don't be afraid, be vigilant."
The reporter's seamless shift to self-promotion did not go unnoticed on social media, where comparisons to CNN's Jim Acosta - another reporter who has turned White House pressers into performance art - surfaced among the president's supporters.
Comment: Trump is damned if he do, damned if he don't with the liberal media, so it's not hard to understand his frustration. Thankfully Trump is being smart,
saying he doesn't think a national lockdown is necessary. Meanwhile the rest of the world continues its descent into coronavirus hysteria...
On Saturday the US-Mexico border
will close and "last as long as necessary," according to Sec. of State Mike Pompeo. Some 2,600 US troops and military staff based in Europe have been
ordered into quarantine after at least 35 of them tested positive for Covid-19. The head doctor of Moscow's main disease hospital
thinks that the coronavirus crisis will last six months (very unlikely).
Not content to scaremonger just the elderly, the WHO
warned the youth that "you are not invincible." The war of words between Washington and Beijing continues, as
the Foreign Ministry in China hit back at the reference to the outbreak as the "Wuhan Flu" by saying that Trump and others "attempt to stigmatize China's fight against the epidemic and shirk its responsibility to China." A staffer for Mike Pence has
tested positive for the virus, but reports are that the staffer did not have close contact with Trump.
The UK has further shut down society, as Boris Johnson
ordered all restaurants, cafes, and pubs to close. A London hospital has
declared a "critical incident" over the number of patients requiring a high level of care, saying they don't have the space for all the people who need care (thank those austerity cuts!). Sirens blared throughout Argentina marking the
beginning of a national quarantine, which surely must have made people feel like they were living in a dystopian science-fiction movie. Italy has
reported a record number of deaths from coronavirus in one day - although exactly how that's being done and whether the deceased have pre-existing health issues is something that is left out of such dire proclamations.
But hey, there's good news! Goldman Sachs is
giving their CEO a 20% raise even as it predicts an economic crash. The head of the WHO says there's actually hope as there have been
no new cases announced in Wuhan on Thursday. Cuba is helping repair its image by
allowing a British cruise ship to dock on its shore despite there being 5 cases of Covid-19 and others showing symptoms. The US refused the same request, but Cuban health officials are showing that they are not so terrified. Good for them.
Comment: Trump is damned if he do, damned if he don't with the liberal media, so it's not hard to understand his frustration. Thankfully Trump is being smart, saying he doesn't think a national lockdown is necessary. Meanwhile the rest of the world continues its descent into coronavirus hysteria...
On Saturday the US-Mexico border will close and "last as long as necessary," according to Sec. of State Mike Pompeo. Some 2,600 US troops and military staff based in Europe have been ordered into quarantine after at least 35 of them tested positive for Covid-19. The head doctor of Moscow's main disease hospital thinks that the coronavirus crisis will last six months (very unlikely).
Not content to scaremonger just the elderly, the WHO warned the youth that "you are not invincible." The war of words between Washington and Beijing continues, as the Foreign Ministry in China hit back at the reference to the outbreak as the "Wuhan Flu" by saying that Trump and others "attempt to stigmatize China's fight against the epidemic and shirk its responsibility to China." A staffer for Mike Pence has tested positive for the virus, but reports are that the staffer did not have close contact with Trump.
The UK has further shut down society, as Boris Johnson ordered all restaurants, cafes, and pubs to close. A London hospital has declared a "critical incident" over the number of patients requiring a high level of care, saying they don't have the space for all the people who need care (thank those austerity cuts!). Sirens blared throughout Argentina marking the beginning of a national quarantine, which surely must have made people feel like they were living in a dystopian science-fiction movie. Italy has reported a record number of deaths from coronavirus in one day - although exactly how that's being done and whether the deceased have pre-existing health issues is something that is left out of such dire proclamations.
But hey, there's good news! Goldman Sachs is giving their CEO a 20% raise even as it predicts an economic crash. The head of the WHO says there's actually hope as there have been no new cases announced in Wuhan on Thursday. Cuba is helping repair its image by allowing a British cruise ship to dock on its shore despite there being 5 cases of Covid-19 and others showing symptoms. The US refused the same request, but Cuban health officials are showing that they are not so terrified. Good for them.