President Donald Trump dismantled claims from left-wing reporter Yamiche Alcindor during the White House Coronavirus Task Force news conference on Monday after Alcindor claimed that people told her they were infected with the coronavirus because they didn’t take the outbreak seriously since Trump didn’t “have a mask on.”
“I interviewed someone who said that his family got sick, they went to a funeral in mid-March and they said mainly because the president wasn’t taking it seriously, he said if the president had a mask on, if he was saying we should stay home, that I would have stayed home,” partisan PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor said. “He said his family members were sick because they were listening to you. Are you concerned that downplaying the virus may be got people sick?”
“We put on a ban of China where China can’t come in and before March we put on a ban on Europe where Europe can’t come in,” Trump responded. “How can you say I wasn’t taking it seriously? I put a ban on China before anybody in this country died. I put on a ban. You tell me.”
“Nancy Pelosi, she wanted to have a street party in Chinatown in San Francisco and the end of February,” Trump continued. “That’s a month later at the end of February. And they tell me it’s only a political talking point. … At the end of January, I put on a ban. People in that room will tell you, I think there were 21 people and I was the only one that wanted to do it. Fortunately, I was the one that counted for that purpose.”
WATCH:
Here are the ridiculously loaded questions that partisan left-wing reporter Yamiche Alcindor asked President Trump during the Coronavirus Task Force press briefing. https://t.co/BEBjHvrvrG pic.twitter.com/umHnbYU8gO
— Jason Rantz on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) April 20, 2020
TRANSCRIPT:
REPORTER: You talked about the idea that first it was ventilators, now it’s testing. You seem to maybe possibly be implying that talking about testing is a personal attack on you. Can use plain why you think talking about testing as a personal attack, giving that access to testing is been an issue for a long time? There is bipartisan outcry still that there’s not enough testing. Why do you think it’s a personal attack on you?
TRUMP: It’s not bipartisan. It’s mostly partisan, but more important than mostly partisan, it’s incorrect. You have the experts, look at these maps, you have the maps with so many different locations. In the case, as an example, Governor Hogan, he didn’t really know. It was very obvious to any of those listening on the call today, even though you weren’t supposed to be on it, I’m sure that some of you were or representatives were. He really didn’t know about the federal laboratories. Would you say that is correct? He didn’t know. Mike doesn’t like to get into this staff. He’s less controversial than I am but he didn’t know about it. If he did know about it he would’ve been happy.
We’ve done a really good job in testing. Now, with that being said, we have test coming out perhaps over the next few weeks that will blow the whole industry away. A lot of people love the Abbott test. So do I. The Abbott test is great because it’s boom, they touch, they put it in and 5 minutes you have [results]. The problem is it doesn’t do massive numbers like the big machine. But the big machine takes a day, it takes a day and a half with delivery and everything else. We have tremendous testing. Tremendous testing capability. Remember this: We have tested more than any other country in the world by far. In fact, I think I read where if you add up every other country in the world, we have tested more. But remember this, we are dealing in politics. We are dealing with a thing called November 3rd of this year. Do you know what November 3rd represents? You know better than anyone in the room. November 3rd of this year, it’s called the presidential election. No matter what I do, no matter where we go, no matter how well we do, no matter what, if I came up with a tablet, you take it and this plague is gone, they will say Trump did a terrible job. Terrible, terrible. Because that’s their sound bite. That’s the political sound bite. They know the great job we have done. With all of that being said, and also there’s a thing somebody could talk about if they want but I don’t want to bore you with it, not everybody believes we should do so much testing. We are talking about maximum, maximum. The reason Democrats and others, they want maximum because they want to be able to criticize because it’s almost impossible to get to the maximum number and yet we have been able to do it already. With that and you’ll be seeing this on the next, I think over the next couple weeks or sooner, we have a test if it comes out, it will revolutionize the whole world of testing. It will be something really special. So, I don’t view it as personal. What I do say is it’s something that’s not fair to thousands of people that have done such a good job.
REPORTER: Your language and how you approach the coronavirus at the beginning. I interviewed someone who said that his family got sick, they went to a funeral in mid-March and they said mainly because the president wasn’t taking it seriously, he said if the president had a mask on, if he was saying we should stay home, that I would have stayed home. He said his family members were sick because they were listening to you. Are you concerned that downplaying the virus may be got people sick?
TRUMP: A lot of people love Trump. A lot of people love me. I guess I’m here for a reason, you know. To the best of my knowledge, I won. I think we are going to win again. I think we are going to win in a landslide but just so you understand, you’re talking about March, right? And yet, excuse me, excuse me. I understand. And yet in January, you know the date better than I do, we put on a ban of China where China can’t come in and before March we put on a ban on Europe where Europe can’t come in. How can you say I wasn’t taking it seriously? I put a ban on China before anybody in this country died. I put on a ban. You tell me. Nancy Pelosi, she wanted to have a street party in Chinatown in San Francisco and the end of February. That’s a month later at the end of February. And they tell me it’s only a political talking point. … At the end of January, I put on a ban. People in that room will tell you, I think there were 21 people and I was the only one that wanted to do it. Fortunately, I was the one that counted for that purpose. We put on a ban because I was reading bad things about China. World Health Organization should have told us. I was reading it with or without them. They should’ve known. All they do is read it. They didn’t have to be there but they tried to cover for China. World Health cover up for China. No, no, wait. You can’t say this. I put on a ban. In other words, I stopped China from coming to the United States. I stopped Europe from coming into the United States. Long before the March date that you are talking about. People should say I acted early. That was a hard thing to do. Doing that was a hard thing to do. I didn’t want to do that. I did it because, and Dr. Fauci said that by doing it President Trump save tens of thousands of lives. I did take it seriously.
REPORTER: You held rallies in February and in March.
TRUMP: I don’t know about rallies. I don’t know about rallies. I know one thing, I haven’t left the White House in months, except for a brief moment to get a wonderful ship, the Comfort.
REPORTER: You held a rally in March.
TRUMP: I don’t know. Did I hold a rally? I’m sorry, I held a rally. In January, when I don’t this, you had virtually no cases and no deaths and yet I put it on, so how could I not? Why was Nancy Pelosi, right, Nancy Pelosi is holding a street fair. She wants a street fair in San Francisco in Chinatown, to prove, you know what the purpose of it was? To prove that there’s no problem. Many other politicians did the same thing and wanted to prove … people are amazed at how early I acted and I did act early. With that being said, it’s very hard to say let’s close down the greatest economy in the history of the world. I had to close down, I and everybody else that works with me and 330 million people built the greatest economy in the history of the world. Best employment numbers, best stock market numbers, best numbers in virtually every category, even good manufacturing numbers. The previous administration said manufacturing was dead for our country, even great manufacturing, and you know what? I did that and somebody walked into my office and said you’re going to have to close down the economy. You’re going to have to close the country. But you know what I say to you? We’re going to rebuild it and we’re going to rebuild it better and it’s going to go faster than people think.