With no good answer for his lost month of coronavirus preparation, Trump snaps at female reporter

[mahatmakanejeeves]

The Fix • Analysis

With no good answer for his lost month of coronavirus preparation, Trump snaps at another female reporter

By Amber Phillips
April 19, 2020 at 10:16 p.m. EDT

When President Trump was asked at Sunday’s White House coronavirus task force briefing why he didn’t warn Americans in February that the virus was spreading and implement social distancing earlier, Trump’s response was to go back to late January, when he issued the travel restrictions on Chinese people coming to the United States.

In other words: More than two months into this crisis, Trump doesn’t have an answer for why he didn’t do more in this crucial window to prepare the country for the coronavirus.

On Sunday, Trump got defensive when a reporter asked him why his administration had not done more to prepare. He told CBS’s Weijia Jiang to “lower her voice” and to take it “nice and easy.” Here’s their exchange:

JIANG: I had a question about something you said on Thursday, which is that you were angry because the information about the virus should have been told to us earlier. And a lot sooner people knew it was happening and people did not want to talk about it. Many Americans are saying the exact same thing about you, that you should have warned them the virus was spreading like wildfire through the month of February instead of holding rallies with thousands of people. Why did you wait so long to warn them, and why did you not have social distancing until March 16th?

TRUMP: Who are you with?

JIANG: I’m Weijia Jiang with CBS News

TRUMP: So if you look at what I did in terms of cutting off of banning China for coming in --

JIANG: Chinese nationals. But by the way, not Americans who were also coming from China.

TRUMP: Nice and easy. Nice and easy. Just relax. We cut it off. People were amazed, these gentlemen. Everybody was amazed I did it. We had 21 people in a room, everyone was against it but me. Dr. Fauci said, had I not done that perhaps tens of thousands, and maybe much more than that, people would have died.

Trump announced the ban on Jan. 31 and it took effect Feb. 2. The decision was controversial in the global public health community.

Trump to female reporter Weijia Jiang: "Who are you with? ... nice and easy. Just relax ... keep your voice down, please. Keep your voice down.." after she calmly presses him of the inaccuracy of his statements.

Link to tweet

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Amber Phillips
Amber Phillips analyzes politics for The Washington Post's nonpartisan politics blog and authors The 5-Minute Fix newsletter, a rundown of the day's biggest political news. She was previously the one-woman D.C. bureau for the Las Vegas Sun and has reported from as far away as Taiwan. Follow https://twitter.com/byamberphillips

[Baitball Blogger]

1. And, erm, New York's problem came from Europe, so...

[AirmensMom]

2. If I had just heard those words

and nothing else. Just those words. I would think a rape was about to happen. And I don't mean metaphorically. It's creeping me out, actually.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. That's exactly what I thought. NT