Trump Stuns NBC Reporter Over China Travel Ban: ‘Your Network Called Me Racist For That’ [Opinion]

By
Jordan Riddle
-
OPINION | This article contains opinion. This site is licensed to publish this content.

NBC’s Kirsten Welker said to President Trump:

“Mr. President, if you say you knew it was a pandemic all along, why wasn’t the administration fully prepared?”

“The only thing we weren’t prepared for was the media,” Trump responded.

“I called for a ban on people coming in from China,” Trump continued.

“It was your network, I believe, they called me a racist because I did that.”

President Trump’s biggest opponent in his presidency has never been his Democratic opponents.

No, not Hillary Clinton, not Nancy Pelosi, and not even Chuck Schumer. Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden do not even get close to the amount of attention and resistance he receives from his real opponent every single day: misinformation from mainstream media.

Trump quickly used the term “fake news” to lambaste those outlets that routinely print information critical of him with little to no factual basis.

And, amid the coronavirus, the fake news is at it again.

The New York Post reports from the very beginning of the outbreak, mainstream media has been misreporting (we’ll let you speculate whether it is intentional or not) that Trump called the coronavirus a “hoax”:

With much of the country now under quarantine, the nation desperately needs reliable information about the coronavirus. Unfortunately, politics has infected much of the mainstream media’s coverage of the threat. Rather than taking their obligation to inform the public seriously, prestige outlets use each new development as a cudgel with which to beat President Trump.

On the heels of the president’s announcement of a sweeping travel ban from other countries and declaration of emergency, a Sunday CNN chyron read: “Trump on Coronavirus: From ‘Hoax’ to National Emergency.”

The trouble is that Trump never called the coronavirus a “hoax” — this is an inaccurate and misleading distortion of what he has said, created and propagated by major media. And CNN won’t stop repeating it.

— Advertisement —

And, once they started, they just couldn’t stop.

CNN anchor and chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto reported on Twitter that the Trump administration was looking to incorporate a national curfew to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

He tweeted: “New: There are active discussions within the Trump administration to encourage a possible ‘curfew’ across the nation in which non-essential businesses would have to close by a certain time each night.”

Katie Miller, a spokeswoman for Vice President Pence, quickly corrected the record.

“This is not correct,” she wrote in response.

Deputy White House press secretary Judd Deere similarly said the statement was “not true!”

Here’s more, from the Western Journal:

His administration offered new guidance during the briefing, asking Americans to avoid groups of more than 10 people for the next 15 days.

“With several weeks of focused action, we can turn the corner and turn it quickly,” the president said.

On Sunday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended canceling or postponing gatherings of over 50 people for the next eight weeks.

Multiple state governors and mayors of large cities — including New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Denver and Los Angeles — have ordered all restaurants to close their dining areas.

Penny Press publisher and CEO of USA Radio Networks Fred Weinberg wrote in an op-ed with the Western Journal that he thinks: “CNN would be happy to see an outbreak of the bubonic plague if it would cost the president the election.”

Here’s more:

I am ashamed of my industry’s actions and reactions to the COVID-19 coronavirus.

First of all, there is too much media. In and of itself that’s not a bad thing, but most of that media is simply amateurish, incompetent and lacking in any standards. And worst of all, much of it has become so politically crazed with Trump Derangement Syndrome that they are covering this virus in hopes that it will somehow militate against the re-election of the president.

The news media’s job is to report the news. Anything Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have to say about the administration’s response to the virus isn’t news; it’s nonsense. These are the same people who criticize the president every day, but have no responsibility. Mitigating the effects of the virus is solely the job of the executive branch.