Trump rips CNN for coronavirus coverage
Trump calls out politicization of outbreak; reaction and analysis on ‘The Five.’
CNN’s left-wing media reporter Brian Stelter showed an apparent lack of self-awareness Friday when he suggested that President Trump should be holding coronavirus task force briefings, something his network famously avoided covering.
President Trump has been holding rallies in key battleground states ever since he recovered from his own battle with the virus earlier this month. Meanwhile, the number of cases in the U.S. have increased sharply in recent weeks, a fact Stelter said the president should address.
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“Someday we’re going to look back and wonder, why wasn’t the president leading daily coronavirus task force briefings from the White House when the virus ripped across the country in late October of 2020?” Stelter asked.
However, CNN began airing less and less of the initial task force briefings this past spring after “CNN Tonight” anchor Don Lemon called on the network to not air them live. After Lemon sent his message, the network would often avoid carrying remarks by the president, instead cutting in to hear from medical experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx.
Even after the White House temporarily revived the briefings in July, CNN chose to skip the president’s remarks. Other times, the networks would skip the briefing altogether.
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Critics blasted Stelter’s tweet, using CNN’s own coverage against him.
“CNN literally stopped showing them as soon as Trump started to talk. Shut all the way up, man,” Washington Examiner social media producer Claude Thompson told Stelter.
“And if he were doing it, CNN would decide not to run them,” RedState senior editor Joe Cunningham shot back.
“Even if he did, how would the CNN viewers know?” journalist Tatjana Pasalic quipped.
Prior to the onset of the pandemic, CNN criticized the White House for no longer conducting daily press briefings. However, when White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany revived the briefings back in May, CNN chose to skip those as well.
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This past January, Stelter slammed the Trump administration for not holding daily press briefings, noting at one point that the “milestone” of 301 days since a briefing was held had been reached. Meanwhile, Trump regularly took questions from White House reporters in less formal settings.
“We have to recognize that it’s not normal. This is not the way things have worked for decades in Washington and the reason there’s not briefings is simply because the president does not want briefings,” Stelter said at the time. “It’s a sign of weakness, not strength. A strong administration, a confident administration would want to answer lots of questions. But instead, the president right now is on the phone with Rush Limbaugh.”
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