A reporter in the White House press corps pressed President Donald Trump on Sunday on why he has not directed a shutdown of all businesses nationwide, including grocery stores.
&#8220;Obviously, we know anyone can spread the disease unwittingly,&#8221; EWTN White House correspondent Owen Jensen said. &#8220;So, why even have a few businesses open? Why not just shut everything down?&#8221;
&#8220;There are grocery stores that are open, fast food places,&#8221; Jensen continued. &#8220;Why even take a little chance? Just shut it all down.&#8221;
&#8220;We&#8217;ll answer that question later,&#8221; Trump responded. &#8220;All I can say is that right now, things are looking really good and opening up with a bang will be a great thing.&#8221;
The Trump administration has implemented social distancing guidelines that it is asking all Americans to follow through the end of the month and most states have closed down non-essential businesses to prevent the spread of the highly contagious virus.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Video: As many people have already pointed out on here, a reporter actually asked Trump about shutting down essential businesses like grocery stores. Seriously.
Here that was. <a href="https://t.co/Eg4uJ9v52G">pic.twitter.com/Eg4uJ9v52G</a>
&mdash; Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) <a href="https://twitter.com/CurtisHouck/status/1246953958914035715?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 6, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The White House released the following guidelines on March 29 which last till the end of April and has been dubbed &#8220;30 Days To Slow The Spread&#8221;:
<ul>
<li>Listen and follow the directions of your state and local authorities.</li>
<li>If you feel sick, stay home. Do not go to work. Contact your medical provider.</li>
<li>If your children are sick, keep them at home. Do not send them to school. Contact your medical provider.</li>
<li>If someone in your household has tested positive for the coronavirus, keep the entire household at home. Do not go to work. Do not go to school. Contact your medical provider.</li>
<li>If you are an older person, stay home and away from other people.</li>
<li>If you are a person with a serious underlying health condition that can put you at increased risk (for example, a condition that impairs your lung or heart function or weakens your immune system), stay home and away from other people.</li>
<li>Even if you are young, or otherwise healthy, you are at risk and your activities can increase the risk for others. It is critical that you do your part to stop the spread of the coronavirus.</li>
<li>Work or engage in schooling from home whenever possible.</li>
<li>If you work in a critical infrastructure industry, as defined by the Department of Homeland Security, such as health care service and pharmaceutical and food supply, you have a special responsibility to maintain your normal work schedule. You and your employers should follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance to protect your health at work.</li>
<li>Avoid social gatherings in groups of more than 10 people.</li>
<li>Avoid eating or drinking in bars, restaurants, and food courts — use drive-thru, pick-up or delivery options.</li>
<li>Avoid discretionary travel, shopping trips and social visits.</li>
<li>Do not visit nursing homes or retirement or long-term care facilities unless to provide critical assistance.</li>
<li>Practice good hygiene.</li>
<li>Wash your hands, especially after touching any frequently used item or surface.</li>
<li>Avoid touching your face.</li>
<li>Sneeze or cough into a tissue, or the inside of your elbow.</li>
<li>Disinfect frequently used items and surfaces as much as possible.</li>
</ul>
This report has been updated to include additional information.

US-HEALTH-VIRUS-BRIEFING

Reporter Presses Trump To Shutdown Grocery Stores, Fast Food Restaurants

Coronavirus

COVID-19

Donald Trump

Media

On Sunday, Dr. Anthony Fauci of the White House Coronavirus Task Force appeared on CBS’ “Face the Nation” with host Margaret Brennan to speak about the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Brennan first asked Fauci about what Americans “should &#8230; be preparing for” given President Trump’s remarks about near-term deaths, as well as Dr. Birx’s recommendation that people avoid leaving their homes as the virus approaches the apex.
Fauci replied, saying that it’s “going to be a bad week.” He added that according to projections, the United States will “continue to see an escalation,” but that he hopes “to see a flattening out of the curve” soon, “within a week, maybe a little bit more.”
He then stated that mitigation is vital in the United States being able to turn the corner:
<blockquote>The mitigation that we&#8217;re talking about, that you just mentioned, is absolutely key to the success of that. So on the one hand, things are going to get bad, and we need to be prepared for that. It is going to be shocking to some. It certainly is really disturbing to see that – but that&#8217;s what&#8217;s going to happen before it turns around. So we&#8217;ll just buckle down, continue to mitigate, continue to do the physical separation because we’ve got to get through this week that&#8217;s coming up because it is going to be a bad week.</blockquote>
Brennan asked for clarification: “Are you saying &#8230; that despite the deaths that we may see, that mitigation is working and that you do have this outbreak under control?”
Fauci replied in the affirmative that mitigation is working. As for having the virus “under control,” the doctor made sure to stress that such a claim would be “false.”
<blockquote>I will not say we have it under control, Margaret. That would be a false statement. We are struggling to get it under control, and that&#8217;s the issue that&#8217;s at hand right now. The thing that&#8217;s important is that what you see is increases in new cases, which then start to flatten out, but the end result of that, you don&#8217;t see for days if not weeks down the pike because as the cases go down, then you get less hospitalizations, less intensive care, and less death.
So even though you&#8217;re getting &#8230; really improvement in that the number of new cases is starting to flatten, the deaths will lag by, you know, one or two weeks or more. So we need to be prepared that even though it&#8217;s clear that mitigation is working, we&#8217;re still going to see that tail off of deaths.</blockquote>
Fauci went on to stress that the thing to watch is stabilization of new cases, which he said is being witnessed in Italy, and will “hopefully be” seen shortly in New York, the COVID-19 epicenter in the United States.
Brennan proceeded to ask Fauci what New York’s Governor Cuomo means when he says that the state “is not yet at the apex.”
“And what happens on the other side of that apex?” Brennan asked.
Fauci replied:
<blockquote>You know, what the governor is saying is that we are still going to see an increase. The curves that we show at the conferences often is that the epidemic curve goes up, and it hits the top a bit and then it starts coming down. So what Governor Cuomo was saying is that we haven&#8217;t yet reached that peak. And when you do, you&#8217;ll start to see a bit of a flattening and come down. So, where we are right now is really approaching that apex, and that&#8217;s why what he&#8217;s saying and what we&#8217;re saying is that this next week is going to look bad because we&#8217;re still not yet at that apex. And I think within a week, eight days or nine days or so, hopefully you&#8217;re going to see that turn around.</blockquote>
<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jJSfz7POzM8" width="720" height="385" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>

Dr. Fauci

WATCH: Fauci Says ‘We Are Struggling To Get’ COVID-19 ‘Under Control,’ But ‘Mitigation Is Working’

Anthony Fauci

White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx shut down those on Friday who were trying to score political points over the administration&#8217;s response to the coronavirus outbreak.
Birx&#8217;s remarks appeared to be directed at CNN&#8217;s Jim Acosta, who had asked during the briefing who had &#8220;dropped the ball&#8221; in the administration.
&#8220;One other comment because I know we’re always saying who knew what when. I just want to make clear. There’s 150-plus countries working on this collectively together,&#8221; Birx said. &#8220;It’s devastating for every single country. When we get through this, we can go back and look at what happened where, and what does this epidemic look like. Then, when you get through it, then you can validate every model there is known to man. When you’re in the middle of it, you have to concentrate on serving the needs of each American and what that need looks like.&#8221;
&#8220;At the same time, you have these other work streams on surveillance, and how to be prepared both scientifically and therapeutically and vaccine wise for the next fall if it happens again,&#8221; Birx continued. &#8220;So, I think these things are happening together, but I just want us to really concentrate on the fact that all around the globe, country after country is dealing with this.&#8221;
Birx then highlighted how China hid critical information about the outbreak, and how the head of the World Health Organization offered poor advice on trying to contain the outbreak.
&#8220;We can talk about why didn’t Italy do something or Spain do something or Germany do something, or we can really say, right now, we all can do something,&#8221; Birx said. &#8220;We can do the social distancing and all of the pieces that we know is starting to work around the globe in country after country. Then when we get through all of this, we can ask the questions about could we have done some piece of this better as a global community. I will remind you that on February 3, the head of the W.H.O. said there was no reason to ever do a travel ban. It wasn’t until January 14th that we knew that there was human-to-human transmission.&#8221;
Right when Birx brought up the W.H.O. and China, Acosta interrupted her.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Dr. Deborah Birx says not to play the blame game and politely nukes reporters who are trying to ask “gotcha questions” during the White House Coronavirus Task Force press briefings. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#COVID19</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/WhiteHouseBriefing?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#WhiteHouseBriefing</a> <a href="https://t.co/TLR6sMkfHU">pic.twitter.com/TLR6sMkfHU</a>
&mdash; Nicole Saphier, MD (@NBSaphierMD) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBSaphierMD/status/1246222211662467075?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 3, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
TRANSCRIPT:
<blockquote>DR. BIRX: One other comment because I know we’re always saying who knew what when. I just want to make clear. There’s 150-plus countries working on this collectively together. It’s devastating for every single country. When we get through this, we can go back and look at what happened where and what does this epidemic look like. Then when you get through it, then you can validate every model there is known to man. When you’re in the middle of it, you have to concentrate on serving the needs of each American and what that need looks like.
At the same time you have these other work streams on surveillance and how to be prepared both scientifically and therapeutically and vaccine wise for the next fall if it happens again. So I think these things are happening together, but I just want us to really concentrate on the fact that all around the globe, country after country is dealing with this.
We can talk about why didn’t Italy do something or Spain do something or Germany do something, or we can really say, right now we all can do something. We can do the social distancing and all of the pieces that we know is starting to work around the globe in country after country. Then when we get through all of this, we can ask the questions about could we have done some piece of this better as a global community. I will remind you that on February 3rd the head of the W.H.O. said there was no reason to ever do a travel ban. It wasn’t until January 14th that we knew that there was human-to-human transmission.
CNN&#8217;S JIM ACOSTA: The president was saying this was going to go away. It’s April.
PRESIDENT TRUMP:  It is going to go away.
ACOSTA: But Mr. President, you said it was going to go away in April. You said that one day-
TRUMP:  I didn’t say a day. I said it’s going away, and it is going away. Okay. Are you … Okay. That was a good answer to your question. No, no, no, no, no, no more. That was a long but a very good answer. That was enough for you.</blockquote>

Dr. Birx Shuts Down Reporters Trying To Push Political Agenda During Crisis

Dr. Deborah Birx

President Donald Trump torched a CNN reporter during a press conference on Sunday after the reporter asked Trump about a remark that he made last week, and left out the full context of his remarks.
“I would also like to ask you about some comments you made on Friday,” CNN reporter Jeremy Diamond said. “You were talking about governors of different states and you said I want them to be appreciative. You also said if they don&#8217;t treat you right, I don&#8217;t call.”
“I didn&#8217;t say that,” Trump fired back. “Excuse me, ready? Take a look at what I said. I want them to be appreciative of me, okay, and then you cut it off because it is fake news [reporter interrupts] please, let me just finish. … Your statement and your response in your answer is a lie because here&#8217;s the story, are you ready? I said I want you to be appreciative of me, and then you go on &#8212; and then I go on, you cut it off.”
Trump then got the CNN reporter to read off the full context of his remarks last week when Trump said: &#8220;I want them to be appreciative. I don&#8217;t want them to say things that aren&#8217;t true. I want them to be appreciative. We&#8217;ve done a great job. And I&#8217;m not talking about me. I&#8217;m talking about Mike Pence, the task force, I&#8217;m talking about FEMA, the Army Corps of Engineers.&#8221;
Diamond then brought up additional remarks that Trump made during that same press conference from last week when Trump appeared to say in a semi-joking manner that he did not call two Democrat governors because of how the treat the administration but that Vice President Mike Pence calls them and works with them.
“You are not appreciating these incredible people, from private enterprise that are delivering things in numbers that nobody&#8217;s ever seen,” Trump told the reporter. “That&#8217;s why people aren&#8217;t watching CNN very much anymore. That&#8217;s why they don&#8217;t like it. That&#8217;s why your ratings are no good because you even after knowing the truth for days now, you bring up the old lie. Read the rest of your question, the rest of your statement, you didn&#8217;t put in. You have to put that in. And it said in there FEMA. It said in there Army Corps of Engineers because when they disrespect me, they&#8217;re disrespecting our government. And you know what? I don&#8217;t mind if I&#8217;m disrespected, but they can&#8217;t disrespect the Army Corps of Engineers and FEMA.”
Trump then called on a different reporter but the CNN reporter continued to shout and interrupt.
“I want them to appreciate the incredible job we&#8217;re doing,” Trump responded. “We are doing a job the likes of which has never been done before. And there are a couple of people that know that, but for political reasons, let&#8217;s say they are Democrats, they don&#8217;t want to give this administration credit, then&#8217;s okay &#8212; and that&#8217;s okay, but I don&#8217;t have to deal with them. But our vice president does deal with them.
“That&#8217;s why CNN is not trusted anymore,” Trump continued. They are not trusted. They are fake news. Remember that.”
“We are not fake news!” the reporter responded.
“Yes, you are,” Trump fired back.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
President Trump calls out CNN for taking his comments about being appreciative out of context.
&quot;That is why CNN is not trusted anymore. They are Fake News.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/H1ioK5FVb7">pic.twitter.com/H1ioK5FVb7</a>
&mdash; Benny (@bennyjohnson) <a href="https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1244399536308662275?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 29, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

US-HEALTH-VIRUS-POLITICS-TRUMP

WATCH: Trump Torches CNN Reporter For Misrepresenting His Comments From Last Week

If there is one thing we know for certain about the American press corps&#8217; interaction with President Donald Trump, it is that they presuppose him an unserious and very vain dolt. If anyone grabs too much of the spotlight or utters anything disloyal, the President throws them out the door.
That is what so much of the press believes. In fact, I suspect some of you readers believe it, too. Certainly, some in the White House believe it. They have tried to exploit it by circulating rumors about various people riding too high in the saddle. The press has tried to drum up divisions between the President and Vice President in this way.
How many stories have we read about the Vice President overshadowing the President, operating as a shadow President, etc.? These were not true, but they were circulated like a soap opera to try to spark division in Washington.
The press fundamentally believes the President will fire people who are more likable than him, overshadow him or make him look bad by outperforming him. So, I have to wonder if a portion of the press corps is trying to get a lot of Americans killed right now.
Dr. Anthony Fauci has loyally served Presidents of the United States going back to Ronald Reagan. In 2008, due to his loyal service to the nation, President George W. Bush awarded Fauci the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Fauci is the most prominent voice in the administration now and its foremost presence on national television. But in the past several days, various media outlets have started pushing stories about Fauci undermining the President. Various reporters on Twitter have grabbed screenshots of Fauci at White House press briefings where he appears to be rolling his eyes or shaking his head when the President speaks. The full film shows he was not doing either.
There have been stories where the media plays up what appears to be Fauci disagreeing with the President or being critical of the President, but these have been taken out of context, too.
Given the media&#8217;s presuppositions about the President, it is reasonable to conclude some journalists are trying to get Fauci fired. Why would they do that? Is this not a crisis where they want the best men and women in charge?
The reason is that the media is addicted to drama. They feed off the storm of clashing personalities for ratings. In the past two weeks there has been no drama, and the President&#8217;s approval ratings for handling the crisis have gone up. Both Gallup and ABC News have polling showing as much. The drama of the virus should be enough, but the media now is addicted to the soap opera narrative.
When not trying to break up the marriage of George and Kellyanne Conway, the Washington press corps seems to be picking other targets and trying to get the president firing in that direction. Right now, it is Fauci the press is after, and they are after him selfishly. As long as Trump is relying on Fauci, the President looks presidential. That is too much for the media. Fauci must go, but so, too, must the presidential press briefings on the virus.
These briefings have been going on for two weeks. The President has not changed. He uses copious adjectives and adverbs to sell his plan and what others are doing. He battles the media. He answers questions. Others answer questions as well, including the relevant medical experts advising the President.
In two weeks, the only thing that has changed is the President&#8217;s approval rating. ABC, CBS and Gallup all have his approval rating for handling the virus at over 50%. The American public has tuned in to the press conferences. Naturally and predictably, the press corps has decided this is too much. Fauci is too good, and the press conferences are too helpful. They have given calm and reduced drama. That must end.
To find out more about Erick Erickson and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Newspapers

ERICKSON: The Press Corps’ Sturm Und Drang

Media Bias

President Donald Trump went on an early morning tirade against the media on Saturday, calling out White House reporters for &#8220;fake news&#8221; and blasting the endless use of nameless sources supposedly revealing inside information.
&#8220;So much of the Lamestream Media is writing and broadcasting stories with facts that are made up and knowingly wrong. They are doing it by quoting unnamed sources that simply do not exist. These are very dangerous &amp; corrupt people, who will do anything to win. NAME YOUR SOURCES!&#8221; Trump wrote on Twitter.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
So much of the Lamestream Media is writing and broadcasting stories with facts that are made up and knowingly wrong. They are doing it by quoting unnamed sources that simply do not exist. These are very dangerous &amp; corrupt people, who will do anything to win. NAME YOUR SOURCES!
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1243873875047448576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 28, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;One of the reasons that Fake News has become so prevalent &amp; far reaching is the fact that corrupt &#8216;journalists&#8217; base their stories on SOURCES that they make up in order to totally distort a narrative or story. When you see, &#8216;five sources say,&#8217; don’t believe the story, it is&#8230;.
&#8220;&#8230;. very often FAKE NEWS. Lamestream Media should be forced to reveal sources, very much as they did in the long ago past. If they did that, the media would be trusted again, and Fake News would largely be a thing of the past!&#8221; Trump wrote.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
One of the reasons that Fake News has become so prevalent &amp; far reaching is the fact that corrupt “journalists” base their stories on SOURCES that they make up in order to totally distort a narrative or story. When you see, “five sources say”, don’t believe the story, it is&#8230;.
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1243878874922041345?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 28, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
&#8230;.very often FAKE NEWS. Lamestream Media should be forced to reveal sources, very much as they did in the long ago past. If they did that, the media would be trusted again, and Fake News would largely be a thing of the past!
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1243904684257091585?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 28, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Trump&#8217;s tirade came after a slew of stories citing unnamed sources, including one in which Trump supposedly called former New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez to seek advice on how to tackle the coronavirus crisis, citing &#8220;multiple sources.&#8221;
&#8220;During marathon day of meetings earlier this week, President Trump continued outreach across the country regarding coronavirus &amp; phoned former Yankees baseball player Alex Rodriguez. Multiple sources tell ABC, the president spoke to ARod from the Oval Office via me &amp; @KFaulders,&#8221; wrote John Santucci, senior editorial producer at ABC News.
&#8220;More Fake News!&#8221; Trump wrote.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
More Fake News! <a href="https://t.co/URewvfAUDl">https://t.co/URewvfAUDl</a>
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1243759793103306754?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 28, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Trump also ripped journalists for using only parts of his remarks and omitting others. For instance, there was this <a href="https://www.twincities.com/2020/03/28/trump-boosts-coronavirus-aid-warns-governors-to-be-appreciative/">Associated Press</a> story that said: “&#8217;I want them to be appreciative,&#8217; Trump said Friday after the White House announced that he would be using the powers granted to him under the Korean War-era Defense Production Act to try to compel auto giant General Motors to produce ventilators.&#8221;
The president blasted other liberal outlets for editing his remarks.
&#8220;Such Fake reporting by the @nytimes, @washingtonpost, @CNN &amp; others. They use a small portion of a sentence out of a full paragraph in order to demean. They really are corrupt and disgusting. No wonder the media is, according to polls, record setting low &amp; untrusted. #MAGA,&#8221; he tweeted.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Such Fake reporting by the <a href="https://twitter.com/nytimes?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@nytimes</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/washingtonpost?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@washingtonpost</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/CNN?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@CNN</a> &amp; others. They use a small portion of a sentence out of a full paragraph in order to demean. They really are corrupt and disgusting. No wonder the media is, according to polls, record setting low &amp; untrusted. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MAGA?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#MAGA</a>
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1243755076214231040?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 28, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Trump singled out a New York Times reporter for tweeting, &#8220;&#8216;I want them to be appreciative,&#8217; the president says of governors who are criticizing the federal response.&#8221;
He retweeted a post in which Greg Price of the Daily Caller wrote: &#8220;Why don&#8217;t you use the full quote you hack: &#8216;I want them to be appreciative. We&#8217;ve done a great job. And I&#8217;m not talking about me. I&#8217;m talking about Mike Pence, the task force, I&#8217;m talking about FEMA, the Army Corps of Engineers.'&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Why don&#39;t you use the full quote you hack:
&quot;I want them to be appreciative. We&#39;ve done a great job. And I&#39;m not talking about me. I&#39;m talking about Mike Pence, the task force, I&#39;m talking about FEMA, the Army Corps of Engineers.” <a href="https://t.co/9LfYwYB7Av">https://t.co/9LfYwYB7Av</a>
&mdash; Greg Price (@greg_price11) <a href="https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1243677737761615872?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
A few theories emerged on Twitter as to why so many are bashing Trump, whose approval rating has reach record highs, according to Gallup.
&#8220;Trump-haters clearly frustrated that the American people-many of whom did not vote for him-approve of the epic job @realDonaldTrump is doing to mitigate the #coronavirus catastrophe. He’s flamboyant &amp; unrestrained, but he’s like General Patton, the right warrior for the fight,&#8221; wrote Fox contributor Gerald Rivera.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Trump-haters clearly frustrated that the American people-many of whom did not vote for him-approve of the epic job <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@realDonaldTrump</a> is doing to mitigate the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/coronavirus?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#coronavirus</a> catastrophe. He’s flamboyant &amp; unrestrained, but he’s like General Patton, the right warrior for the fight.
&mdash; Geraldo Rivera (@GeraldoRivera) <a href="https://twitter.com/GeraldoRivera/status/1243692160807055361?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 28, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;They’re not happy because ⁦@realDonaldTrump⁩ is speaking directly to American people during a crisis and getting strong approval ratings for his handling of this,&#8221; wrote Fox host Laura Ingraham.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
They’re not happy because ⁦<a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@realDonaldTrump</a>⁩ is speaking directly to American people during a crisis and getting strong approval ratings for his handling of this. <a href="https://t.co/92xmMrPPXr">pic.twitter.com/92xmMrPPXr</a>
&mdash; Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) <a href="https://twitter.com/IngrahamAngle/status/1243679884490178560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 27, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

TOPSHOT-US-VOTE-DEBATE

‘DANGEROUS AND CORRUPT PEOPLE’: Trump Explodes On ‘Lamestream Media’ In Twitter Tirade

Fake News

About five years ago, I wrote a column about the Ring of Gyges, which may have been the inspiration for the ring of invisibility that sucked the soul out of Gollum in Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings.”
Plato’s brother Glaucon tells the story in the “Republic” of how Gyges, a shepherd, found the ring and, having become invisible, discovered he could commit any crime without being caught.
Glaucon said, “No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would&#8230;”
I noted back then that the media had had a similar effect on the Democrats. Hiding the corruption and abuses of the Obama administration, the press made them invisible and so the abuses grew worse. Obama went from unleashing the IRS on his political opponents, to selling his soul to the terrorist regime in Iran, and finally to spying on the opposition presidential candidate. Shielded by the ring of media invisibility, Obama became President Gollum.
Since then, though, the power of social media and of right-wing rebel media has grown, and the power of the media ring of invisibility is wearing off.
We see you, Democrats.
Nancy Pelosi must have thought the media ring would protect her when she sought to turn an emergency relief bill into a leftist wish list. Government-enforced board room diversity for businesses. Government-enforced emission postings for airlines. New voting rules to make fraud easier.
“Everything we are suggesting just relates to COVID-19,” Pelosi lied boldly. She must have thought she was still invisible.
But we see you, Nancy.
The New York Times worked hard to make the Democrats’ unforgivable behavior unseeable as well. At first they told the truth: “Democrats Block Action on $1.8 Trillion Stimulus.” Then they softened the truth: “Democrats Block Action on Stimulus Plan, Seeking Worker Protections.” Then they disappeared it: “Partisan Divide Threatens Deal on Rescue Bill.” Then they lied: “The Coronavirus Bailout Stalled, and it’s Mitch McConnell’s Fault.”
In the old days, they could have gotten away with it, but screenshots captured the crime against journalism, and social media spread them around.
We see you, New York Times.
President Trump’s daily press briefings have caused his popularity to rise while the media’s falls. So CNN and NBC have simply stopped full coverage of the briefings. When Response Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said the media is overplaying worst case scenarios and inflated numbers – which they are – CNN actually cut away.
But it won’t work. We see Trump doing his job well in a crisis. And we see you, media. You’re not invisible anymore, and you can’t make the Democrats invisible either.
Speaking of which: Joe Biden. His attempts at a response to the crisis have been pitiful. His “shadow briefing” was filled with blather and technical glitches. His interviews have been rambling and incomprehensible. And his action plans have been full of refried Pelosi don’t-let-a-crisis-go-to-waste gimmes: the Green New Deal, Student Loan forgiveness. Yeah, that oughta help.
In what has to be the funniest piece of the crisis not written by me, Showtime’s “The Circus” co-host Alex Wagner begged Biden just to “stay alive,” saying, “Democrats need little from the front-runner beyond his corporeal presence.”
She wrote, “Biden was never really convincing anyone on the stump – his political power at this point is an idea, held collectively, about how to defeat Trump. The work now is to keep that idea convincing enough, for long enough, among as many people as possible, for the corporeal man to actually win.”
In other words, the actual Biden has to be rendered invisible. So when writer Tara Reade said Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993, forcing her against a wall and shoving his fingers into her before she could break free, the press simply ignored it.
When the attempt to destroy Brett Kavanaugh was underway in 2018, Biden said that when a woman makes such an accusation, you have to “start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real.” Now he says Reade’s charges are untrue. And the media has done everything it knows how to bury Reade’s story and the story of the seven other women who’ve made similar accusations.
But the media ring of invisibility does not work anymore. The Daily Wire is here now and Fox News and The Bongino Report and every honest citizen who knows how to use screenshot and social media.
We see you, Joe. We see you, media. We see you, Democrats.
We see every damn one of you.

Biden and Pelosi

KLAVAN: We See You, Democrats

2020 Election

Joe Biden

On Friday, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams blasted the media for hyping “worst-case scenarios” when discussing the coronavirus crisis. Adams appeared on CBS &#8220;This Morning,&#8221; where co-host Gayle King ripped President for a similar perspective to Adams’ arguing that the president had “no medical training.”
As Kyle Drennen of <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/print/254903">Newsbusters</a> reports, King began the exchange by asserting:
<blockquote>Dr. Adams, let’s talk about ventilators for just a second. You know, doctors and nurses around the country are saying, &#8220;Hello, government, we need ventilators, we need ventilators now.&#8221; But President Trump seems to have a different take on that. I want you to hear what he said last night and get your response to that.</blockquote>
King then played a clip of the president saying, “But I have a feeling that a lot of the numbers that are being said in some areas are just bigger than they’re going to be. I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You know, you go in major hospitals, sometimes they’ll have two ventilators. So now all of a sudden they’re saying, ‘Can we order 30,000 ventilators?”
King continued, “Dr. Adams, the President, to our knowledge, has no medical training, yet he continues to question the advice from the medical experts and professionals. Is that frustrating to you?”
Adams, who is an anesthesiologist and vice admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, answered, “Well, you mentioned ventilators, and Dr. Birx said this, when you look at some of the projections out there, they’re based on worst-case scenarios and doing something. I heard a reporter yelling at Peter Navarro yesterday, ‘Where is a million ventilators?’ A million ventilators for the United States would mean one in 300 people in this country were on a ventilator at once. There is nowhere in the world where we’ve seen that type of spread of coronavirus, not even close. And so, some of these projections are way off. But we are leaning into supply. I was on a meeting with the American Society of Anesthesiologists last week and they’ve identified 70,000 ventilators that are in communities right now that can be converted.”
Drennen noted that the <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/alex-christy/2020/03/26/cnn-host-cuts-off-trump-aide-wasteof-time">interview</a> Adams referenced came from CNN on Thursday, when CNN anchor Brianna Keilar cut off White House advisor Peter Navarro from correcting her on her assumptions of how many ventilators were needed nationwide.
Then King started hyping New York governor Andrew Cuomo, gushing, “But we heard New York Governor Andrew Cuomo ask for ventilators. He gave very specific numbers. Do you think he doesn’t know what he’s talking about when it comes to this issue? When he’s in constant contact with New York – the top New York hospitals, by the way, that are in trouble.”
Adams, who received a Master of Public Health degree from the University of California, Berkeley, with a focus on chronic disease prevention, countered:
<blockquote>Well, I think that if you – I think that’s a fair question, and I think that if you talk to experts, Dr. Fauci, Dr. Birx and others, the models in many cases are way off. New York City, we actually have people on the ground who have told us that there are 1,000 ventilators sitting in a warehouse right now that haven’t been used.
You heard Governor Cuomo yesterday say, “Look, we actually have resources, they’re just mismatched.” And so, we sent a team, a FEMA team to help New York City make sure the resources are getting to where they need. I talked to people in western New York who said they’re furloughing nurses in hospitals in western New York State while people in New York City are suffering. We need to make sure we get the right resources to the right people. And that’s what we’re committed to doing.</blockquote>
Transcript courtesy of <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/print/254903">Newsbusters</a>.

President Trump Says He&#8217;s Been Tested for Coronavirus After Exposure

U.S. Surgeon General Rips Media For Hyping ‘Worst-Case Scenarios’

Jerome Adams

Dr. Deborah Birx, who serves as the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator, unloaded on the mainstream media during a press conference on Thursday for their COVID-19 reporting that is not backed up by factual realities.
Birx began by highlighting the study in the U.K. that dramatically revised its projections of the total number of deaths projected in the U.K. from &#8220;half a million to 20,000.&#8221;
&#8220;So, when people start talking about 20% of a population getting infected,&#8221; Birx later added. &#8220;It’s very scary, but we don’t have data that matches that based on the experience.&#8221;
Birx then unloaded on the media for its claims that there were few, if any, ventilators in New York and that doctors may have to soon make decisions about who lives and who dies.
&#8220;We were reassured after meeting with colleagues in New York there are still ICU beds remaining and there&#8217;s still significant, over a thousand or 2,000 ventilators that have not been used yet,&#8221; Birx said. &#8220;Please, for the reassurance of people around the world, to wake up this morning and look at people talking about creating DNR situations, do not resuscitate situations for patients, there is no situation in the United States right now that warrants that kind of discussion.&#8221;
&#8220;You could be thinking about it in a hospital, certainly many hospitals talk about it &#8230; on a daily basis,&#8221; Birx continued. &#8220;But to say that to the American people, to make the implication that when they need a hospital bed it&#8217;s not going be there or when they need that ventilator it won’t be there, we don’t have evidence of that right now.&#8221;
&#8220;There&#8217;s no &#8230; reality on the ground where we can see that 60-70% of Americans are going to get infected in the next 8-12 weeks,&#8221; Birx concluded. &#8220;I just want to be clear about that.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Low-key scolding the media, Dr Deborah Birx says the data doesn&#39;t match the doomsday media predictions or analysis. She just destroyed the media narrative coming from CNN, MSNBC and progressive blue checkmarks. They tell <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@realdonaldtrump</a> to listen to experts. But will THEY? <a href="https://t.co/zbbR2vSl2N">pic.twitter.com/zbbR2vSl2N</a>
&mdash; (((Jason Rantz))) on KTTH Radio (@jasonrantz) <a href="https://twitter.com/jasonrantz/status/1243310401774735361?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 26, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
TRANSCRIPT:
<blockquote>I am sure many ever you saw the recent report out of the U.K. about them adjusting completely their needs. This is really quite important. If you remember that was the report that said there would be 500,000 deaths in the U.K. and 2.2 million deaths in the United States. They&#8217;ve adjusted that number in the U.K. to 20,000. So, half a million to 20,000. We are looking into this in great details to understand that adjustment.
In the model, either you have to have a large group of people who are asymptomatic who never presented for any test in order to have the kind of numbers that were predicted. To get to 60 million people infected, or 6 million people infected, you have do have a large group of asymptomatics because in no country to date have we seen an attack rate over 1 in 1,000. So, either we&#8217;re only measuring the tip of the iceberg of the symptomatic cases and underneath it are a large group of people. So, we are working hard to get the antibody test because that&#8217;s a good way to figure out &#8216;who are all these people under here and do they exist?&#8217;. Or we have the transmission completely wrong. So, these are the things we are looking at because the predictions of the models don’t match the reality on the ground in either China, South Korea or Italy.
We are about 5 times the [population] size of Italy. So, if we were Italy and you did all of those divisions, Italy should have close to 400,000 deaths. They are not close to achieving that. These are the kinds of things we are trying to understand. Models are models.There is enough data now of the real experience with the Coronavirus on the ground to really make these predictions much more sound. So, when people start talking about 20% of a population getting infected. It’s very scary, but we don’t have data that matches that based on the experience.
And then finally, the situation about ventilators. We were reassured after meeting with colleagues in New York there are still ICU beds remaining and there&#8217;s still significant, over a thousand or 2,000 ventilators that have not been used yet. Please for the reassurance of people around the world, to wake up this morning and look at people talking about creating DNR situations, do not resuscitate situations for patients, there is no situation in the United States right now that warrants that kind of discussion. You could be thinking about it in a hospital, certainly many hospitals talk about it this on a daily basis. But to say that to the American people, to make the implication, that when they need a hospital bed it&#8217;s not going be there or when they need that ventilator it won’t be there, we don’t have evidence of that right now.
&#8230;
There&#8217;s no &#8230; reality on the ground where we can see that 60-70% of Americans are going to get infected in the next 8-12 weeks. I just want to be clear about that.b</blockquote>

Members Of The Coronavirus Task Force Hold Press Briefing

Dr. Deborah Birx Shreds Media For Salacious Claims: ‘We Don’t Have Evidence Of That’

Silver linings accompany most catastrophic events, and one major one with the coronavirus is the remarkable way Americans (and people throughout the world) have come together to fight this outbreak.
Though the stock market has reflected a nation in panic, in other respects Americans, for the most part, have reacted responsibly, unselfishly and cooperatively, and I pray we are making substantial progress toward flattening the growth curve of this virus.
President Donald Trump and his extraordinary team of generals leading this war effort are implementing a multipronged approach to combat the spread of the disease, treat those infected with it, provide financial relief to those affected by it, calm the nation and stabilize our economy, which has been blindsided by this catastrophe.
I marvel at the professionalism of President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, and those aligned with them on the dais for the daily White House press briefings, all of whom are earnest, transparent, informative and responsive. They are optimistic and encouraging without providing false hope, diligently studying this problem around the clock, employing the best minds and seeking to eliminate unnecessary bureaucratic red tape to expedite solutions.
There is not a hint of partisanship in the air, only a unified commitment to defeating this enemy and restoring America to robust physical and economic health. None of us knows what the ultimate outcome will be, but I trust that the virus&#8217; devastation will be strikingly less severe for Americans because of this assembled team of dedicated patriots.
By contrast, there is sadly plenty of partisanship and Trump hatred from the press. From the outset, many of them focused on little else but smearing Trump and his approach to eradicating the virus.
As I watched the briefings earlier in the week, I was taken aback by some of their &#8220;gotcha&#8221; questions, which were designed to impugn and embarrass Trump, rather than facilitate the flow of information to the public. Couldn&#8217;t these people suspend their bile for a minimal grace period given the nature and severity of the crisis?
I was struck by the rudeness of some of these vultures who should at least pretend to be on Team America instead of Team Anti-Trump. While some were asking helpful questions and eliciting important information from the panel, others accused Trump of racism for identifying China as the virus&#8217; country of origin, and of inciting violence against people of Chinese descent in the United States.
One reporter asked Trump if we might be headed toward a virus-induced recession, and he acknowledged it is possible. Media outlets immediately blasted the headline &#8220;Trump Says We May Be Headed for a Recession,&#8221; which was sensational, inflammatory and intentionally misleading because they implied that Trump brought it up and that it was virtually inevitable.
One particularly despicable attack involved a misleading New York Times report that contained an incomplete quote from President Trump during a conference call with state governors. The report implied that Trump had callously denied the governors&#8217; request for respirators, ventilators and other needed equipment and told them, &#8220;try getting it yourselves.&#8221; In fact, Trump had followed that statement with an assurance: &#8220;We will be backing you, but try getting it yourselves. Point of sales, much better, much more direct if you can get it yourself.&#8221; Even after it became clear this was &#8220;fake news,&#8221; one obnoxious reporter at the press briefing brought it up again, using the incomplete quote.
MSNBC anchor Katy Tur was aghast that the president&#8217;s team stood too closely together on the dais, and that Trump and others shook hands and touched the microphone, setting a bad example for social distancing.
Others couldn&#8217;t stand that the president&#8217;s team complimented him. Charles Pierce wrote in Esquire that the &#8220;sad part&#8221; of the briefings is &#8220;watching all of these accomplished, brilliant people, the people who have dedicated their lives to solving epidemic diseases at the highest level, standing there behind a vulgar talking yam, praising him for his brilliant work thus far.&#8221;
I find it ironic that the people most critical of President Trump for being &#8220;vulgar,&#8221; &#8220;rude&#8221; and self-absorbed display those characteristics themselves as they wallow in their paralyzing hatred, unable to do their jobs because of their toxic obsession over President Trump.
While some of these media critics are hellbent on disgracing Trump for neglecting the people&#8217;s interests, they are disgracing themselves as they wail on Trump and themselves neglect the people&#8217;s interests. Sadly, they are too bitter to see their hypocrisy. Happily, the American public is not.
David Limbaugh is a writer, author and attorney. His latest book is &#8220;Guilty by Reason of Insanity: Why the Democrats Must Not Win.&#8221; Follow him on Twitter @davidlimbaugh and his website at www.davidlimbaugh.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate webpage at www.creators.com.

American flag

LIMBAUGH: Media’s Negativity Won’t Dampen The American Spirit

China

President Trump has not backed away from his use of the term &#8220;Chinese Virus&#8221; in reference to the COVID-19 pandemic, even as his critics denounce the term as racist.
During his press conference on Wednesday morning, a reporter asked President Trump if the term &#8220;Chinese Virus&#8221; was racist, to which the president replied:  &#8220;It&#8217;s from China. It&#8217;s not racist at all, no. Not at all. It comes from China. That&#8217;s why. It comes from China. I want to be accurate.&#8221;
As reported by<a href="https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-outbreak-03-18-20-intl-hnk/h_b446ee20d5d4672864a6443c13a4616a"> CNN</a>, President Trump added that he condemns the lies that China has spread in response to COVID-19.
“I have great love for all of the people from our country, but as you know China tried to say at one point … that it was caused by American soldiers,&#8221; said the president. &#8220;That can’t happen, it’s not gonna happen, not as long as I’m president. It comes from China.”
WATCH:
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&quot;Why do you keep calling this the Chinese virus?&quot; 
President Trump: &quot;Because it comes from China.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/HfmAtTUzny">pic.twitter.com/HfmAtTUzny</a>
&mdash; Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) <a href="https://twitter.com/DailyCaller/status/1240315956368457734?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 18, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Earlier on Wednesday morning, the president denounced the fake news and false narratives about the handling of COVID-19, asserting he always treated the &#8220;Chinese Virus&#8221; seriously.
&#8220;I always treated the Chinese Virus very seriously, and have done a very good job from the beginning, including my very early decision to close the &#8216;borders&#8217; from China &#8211; against the wishes of almost all,&#8221; the president tweeted. &#8220;Many lives were saved. The Fake News new narrative is disgraceful &amp; false!&#8221;
&#8220;I will be having a news conference today to discuss very important news from the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] concerning the Chinese Virus!&#8221; he later added.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
I always treated the Chinese Virus very seriously, and have done a very good job from the beginning, including my very early decision to close the “borders” from China &#8211; against the wishes of almost all. Many lives were saved. The Fake News new narrative is disgraceful &amp; false!
&mdash; Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1240243188708839424?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 18, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
As The Daily Wire Editor-In-Chief Ben Shapiro <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/shapiro-coronavirus-is-the-chinese-virus">argued</a>, the term &#8220;Chinese Virus&#8221; is not only accurate but necessary:
<blockquote>Make no mistake: The Chinese government is chiefly responsible for the explosion of this pandemic. The so-called wet markets of China — the meat markets that often include wild animals ranging from snakes to pangolins — exist for a variety of reasons, ranging from price to superstitious belief in medicinal properties of exotic animals.
Whatever the rationale, the communist Chinese government has been exceedingly tolerant of such markets, even though they have now been responsible for the spread of coronavirus, SARS, bird flu, Asian flu and swine fever.
Meanwhile, the Chinese government acted early to shut down the spread of information about the coronavirus, which paved the way for freedom of travel by carriers of the disease. When ophthalmologist Li Wenliang told fellow doctors about coronavirus in an online chat room in December, he was forced to swear by the Chinese government that he had been making “untrue statements.” He ended up dying of the disease.</blockquote>
Regarding the president&#8217;s seriousness in response to COVID-19, his critics have hit him on two fronts: delayed testing and supposedly dissolving the White House pandemic response team.
On the issue of delayed testing, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dr-fauci-president-not-responsible-for-delayed-covid-19-testing-trump-biden-should-apologize">has already said</a> that neither President Trump nor the CDC were responsible for the delayed testing of COVID-19, alleging it resulted from a “technical glitch” out of the president’s control.
“It was a complicated series of multiple things that conflated that just, you know, went the wrong way. One of them was a technical glitch that slowed things down in the beginning. Nobody’s fault. There weren’t any bad guys there. It just happened,” Fauci <a href="https://www.hughhewitt.com/dr-anthony-fauci-and-senator-tom-cotton-on-coronavirus-and-day-two-of-the-great-american-shutdown/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">told Hugh Hewitt</a> on “The Hugh Hewitt” show.
“Was the glitch or anything about the production of the test President Trump’s fault?” Hewitt asked, as reported by <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/487985-fauci-neither-trump-nor-cdc-to-blame-for-testing-delay">The Hill</a>. “Or actually, let me put it more broadly, would every president have run into the same problem?”
“Oh, absolutely,” Fauci replied. “This has nothing to do with anybody’s fault, certainly not the president’s fault.”
Regarding the supposed dissolution of the White House pandemic team, Tim Morrison a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former senior director for counterproliferation and biodefense on the National Security Council, wrote a lengthy <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/03/16/no-white-house-didnt-dissolve-its-pandemic-response-office/">piece in The Washington Post</a> debunking this argument. As it turns out, the president did not dissolve the pandemic team and only &#8220;streamlined&#8221; it:
<blockquote>It is true that the Trump administration has seen fit to shrink the NSC staff. But the bloat that occurred under the previous administration clearly needed a correction. <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/465320-reducing-nsc-staff-places-trump-on-right-side-of">Defense Secretary Robert Gates</a>, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/republicans-try-to-shrink-the-national-security-council/483596/">congressional oversight committees</a> and members of the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/how-the-obama-white-house-runs-foreign-policy/2015/08/04/2befb960-2fd7-11e5-8353-1215475949f4_story.html?tid=lk_inline_manual_10&amp;itid=lk_inline_manual_10">Obama administration</a> itself all agreed the NSC was too large and too operationally focused (a departure from its traditional role coordinating executive branch activity). As The Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/how-the-obama-white-house-runs-foreign-policy/2015/08/04/2befb960-2fd7-11e5-8353-1215475949f4_story.html?tid=lk_inline_manual_10&amp;itid=lk_inline_manual_10">reported</a> in 2015, from the Clinton administration to the Obama administration’s second term, the NSC’s staff “had quadrupled in size, to nearly 400 people.” That is why Trump began streamlining the NSC staff in 2017.</blockquote>

White House Coronavirus Task Force Holds Daily Briefing

WATCH: Reporter Asks If ‘Chinese Virus’ Is Racist. Trump Has The Perfect Response.

Racism

The White House briefing room is much smaller than it looks on TV.
Reporters are crammed into assigned seats, seven per row for seven rows, or 49 people. But reporters without seats line the aisles on both sides and photographers jockeying for pictures make the room one big germfest.
On Monday, the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA), which sets the seating chart in the room, released a rearranged seating chart to increase &#8220;social distancing,&#8221; meaning quite a few reporters are now without the seats they once held. Under the new setup, only every other seat is to be occupied.
And those not on the seating chart are out, the White House said in an email to reporters.
&#8220;Members of the press who do not have a seat on the updated seating chart or who do not participate in the President’s In-House Pool will not be permitted access to the White House Complex,&#8221; said an email from White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham. She added that the changes are &#8220;effective Tuesday, March 17, 2020, and continuing until further notice.&#8221;
The WHCA issued new policies late Sunday in an effort to follow guidelines set out by doctors to stem the spread of the coronavirus. And the association urged reporters to work remotely if possible and limit the number of journalists at the White House to the bare minimum.
&#8220;Our new normal: This is the White House briefing room where @VP, @realDonaldTrump, and officials give us the latest on #CoronavirusOutbreak. Only every other seat can be occupied starting today, per @whca. #SocialDistancing,&#8221; wrote CBS reporter Weijia Jiang.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Our new normal: This is the White House briefing room where <a href="https://twitter.com/VP?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@VP</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@realDonaldTrump</a>, and officials give us the latest on <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CoronavirusOutbreak?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CoronavirusOutbreak</a>. Only every other seat can be occupied starting today, per <a href="https://twitter.com/whca?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@whca</a>. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SocialDistancing?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#SocialDistancing</a> <a href="https://t.co/eE22srno4N">pic.twitter.com/eE22srno4N</a>
&mdash; Weijia Jiang (@weijia) <a href="https://twitter.com/weijia/status/1239520726505394176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 16, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The orange signs read: &#8220;To ensure proper social distancing, this seat is to remain unoccupied for the duration of the coronavirus outbreak.&#8221;
Jiang also posted another picture that shows who sits where under the new plan.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
The view from the podium. <a href="https://t.co/OC7oVXtwO3">pic.twitter.com/OC7oVXtwO3</a>
&mdash; Weijia Jiang (@weijia) <a href="https://twitter.com/weijia/status/1239521440422133761?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 16, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The WHCA is discouraging those without a seat from attending White House briefings.
&#8220;We understand these restrictions are deeply disruptive to our members and their ability to do their jobs,&#8221; WHCA President Jonathan Karl of ABC News said in a statement, <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/media/487754-whca-rearranges-seats-in-briefing-room-to-increase-social-distancing">The Hill</a> reported. &#8220;But we are forced to take these steps to do our part to ensure that there is a healthy pool available to cover the president and inform the public during this critical time.&#8221;
Here&#8217;s the new seating arrangement, according to a tweet by Katherine Faulders of ABC News.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Temporary seating chart in the White House briefing room to accommodate social distancing guidelines <a href="https://t.co/MFTIzXScv2">pic.twitter.com/MFTIzXScv2</a>
&mdash; Katherine Faulders (@KFaulders) <a href="https://twitter.com/KFaulders/status/1239397157918179328?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 16, 2020</a></blockquote>
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That leaves just five &#8220;conservative&#8221; outlets in the briefing room at any given time &#8212; Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times (which will share a seat with The New York Post), and One America Network (which will share a seat with Newsmax). Fox Business News will also share a seat with CNBC.
&#8220;Now, more than ever, America needs a healthy, fair, and accurate press to deliver the news,&#8221; Grisham wrote in her email. &#8221; We again urge members of the press to direct the American people to Coronavirus.gov for the most up-to-date and factual information available. When possible, members of the press seeking information are encouraged to call or email press staff as opposed to physically entering the Lower or Upper Press Offices. Thank you for understanding that necessary and temporary precautions must be made during this unprecedented situation for your safety and for the safety of our great Nation.&#8221;
The White House on Saturday began taking the temperature of people &#8220;in close contact&#8221; with President Trump or Vice President Pence, including reporters who are attending briefings on the coronavirus.
“Out of an abundance of caution, temperature checks are now being performed on any individuals who are in close contact with the President and Vice President,&#8221; Deputy Press Secretary Judd Deere said in a statement. “In order to keep the entire White House complex safe and healthy, beginning Monday morning, temperature checks will be conducted on everyone who enters campus. As was announced over the weekend, additional temperature checks will be conducted on individuals who are in close contact with the president and vice president throughout the day.”
&#8220;Other precautionary steps the White House is taking: pausing its internship and volunteer programs, canceling public tours and canceling large events through the end of March. The White House also has closed its Navy Mess Dining Room, where many staffers get daily meals,&#8221; the <a href="https://fox40.com/news/national-and-world-news/white-house-acts-to-protect-trump-during-virus-outbreak/">Associated Press</a> reported.
&nbsp;

Sean Spicer Holds Daily Press Briefing At The White House

Half The White House Press Corps Axed From Briefing Room To Increase ‘Social Distancing’

White House

The NBA season has been suspended. Same with the NHL and MLS (that’s soccer). The MLB pre-season has been cancelled. The XFL season is done. The NCAA championships have been cancelled. Fantasy sports betting websites like Draftkings and FanDuel list only MMA and esports. SuperDraft is running simulated basketball games such as ’12 Heat vs. the ’01 Lakers. There’s still horse racing, but fans have been banned from stadiums.
So, what’s a sports journalist to do when there are no sports? The Ringer’s Bryan Curtis dove into the question.
In <a href="https://www.theringer.com/2020/3/16/21181180/coronavirus-media-espn-nba-utah-jazz-scott-van-pelt-jim-rome">an article</a> published Monday, Curtis took a look at the worries those in the industry – who have never dealt with entire sports seasons being cancelled like this:
<blockquote>Two things make their coronavirus stories unique. One, this is the first crisis I can remember in which sports media members themselves are an affected class. At least four writers who covered Wednesday’s fateful Jazz-Thunder game went into self-quarantine, as did Charles Barkley, who called into Thursday’s edition of Inside the NBA.
The coronavirus also got sports across America cancelled. The sportswriter playbook of covering external events used to be this: Write a few stories. Maybe work in a thumb-sucker. (Will we ever watch games the same way again?) Then return to normal programming.</blockquote>
Unfortunately, Curtis wrote, they can’t simply return to normal programming because in those other cases, sports seasons weren’t cancelled indefinitely. Curtis noted that Keith Olbermann suggested games might not resume for six months.
“But wait. There’s a reason for sports media members to feel even worse. We’ve spent the last several years hearing that our work may no longer be financially sustainable. Imagine what that fragile professional state is going to feel like without power rankings,” Curtis reported.
Curtis didn’t really have an answer for those wondering what to do while seasons are suspended or cancelled:
<blockquote>Last week, as leagues cancelled or suspended games, it was fashionable to search for “something positive” about the experience. My training as a sportswriter prevents me from searching for something positive. But if I had to come up with something less dire, I’d say this: When a pandemic is crossing the globe, it’s normal for a sports media person to feel discombobulated, sidelined, almost useless, even as she or he snaps into action. Such self-awareness is useful. I worry about anybody who doesn’t feel at least slightly self-conscious about covering sports for a living.</blockquote>
In <a href="https://www.theringer.com/2020/3/10/21173499/coronavirus-locker-room-mlb-nba-nfl-sportswriting">an article</a> last week, Curtis suggested the coronavirus “could change American sportswriting forever.” His main concern was the first measure sports leagues took to address the coronavirus: Ending locker room access for reporters.
“Though the leagues say the changes are temporary, reporters are freaked. The ability to report inside a locker room is nothing short of a miracle of American sportswriting. At a time where there’s no regular White House briefing, standing in front of LeBron James and asking a question is an anachronism. Sportswriters realize the precariousness of the arrangement. That’s why they’re scared shitless that the coronavirus will be the means by which it’s taken away forever,” Curtis wrote.
It&#8217;s hard to imagine reporters won’t be allowed back into the locker room once the coronavirus is contained, but the entire situation is still filled with “what ifs.”

Empty football field and stadium seats.

Sports Journalists Wonder What To Do Now That Sports Are Cancelled Due To Coronavirus

Sports

President Donald Trump slammed the media during a press conference on Sunday after many left-wing journalists falsely reported that Google was not building a national website to track the spread of the coronavirus.
&#8220;I want to thank the people at Google and Google Communications because, as you know, they substantiated what I said on Friday,&#8221; Trump said. &#8220;The head of Google, who&#8217;s a great gentleman, called us and he apologized, I don&#8217;t know where the press got their fake news but they got it some place.&#8221;
Trump then held up a sheet of paper that showed a series of tweets that were put out by Google Communications that backed up what Trump initially said.
&#8220;But as you know, this is from Google, they put out a release,&#8221; Trump said as he flicked the paper. &#8220;And you guys can figure it out yourselves and how that got out and I&#8217;m sure you&#8217;ll apologize, but it would be great if we could really give the news correctly. It would be so, so, wonderful.&#8221;
WATCH:
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Trump is a Savage <a href="https://t.co/KiqoRG2dXQ">pic.twitter.com/KiqoRG2dXQ</a>
&mdash; ALX 🇺🇸 (@alx) <a href="https://twitter.com/alx/status/1239304351048491009?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 15, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

US-POLITICS-HEALTH-VIRUS-TRUMP

WATCH: Trump Torches Media Over False Google Website Claims, Flicks Paper

Google

Google pushed back against claims from left-wing media on Saturday after certain publications and journalists falsely claimed that President Donald Trump lied when he said that Google was building a national website to track cases of coronavirus.
&#8220;I want to thank Google,&#8221; Trump said during a press conference on Friday. &#8220;Google is helping to develop a website. It’s going to be very quickly done, unlike websites of the past, to determine whether a test is warranted and to facilitate testing at a nearby convenient location.&#8221;
Google Communications initially released a statement on Friday from Verily, a company that is owned by Google&#8217;s parent company, Alphabet.
&#8220;We are developing a tool to help triage individuals for Covid-19 testing. Verily is in the early stages of development, and planning to roll testing out in the Bay Area, with the hope of expanding more broadly over time,&#8221; Google Communications tweeted. &#8220;We appreciate the support of government officials and industry partners and thank the Google engineers who have volunteered to be part of this effort.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
“We appreciate the support of government officials and industry partners and thank the Google engineers who have volunteered to be part of this effort.&quot;
&mdash; Google Communications (@Google_Comms) <a href="https://twitter.com/Google_Comms/status/1238574770075115521?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 13, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Left-wing media immediately pounced, claiming that Trump lied and that there was no website being built by Google.
Then, on Saturday, Google released it&#8217;s own statement stating that it was in fact building a national website to track the coronavirus.
&#8220;We are fully aligned and continue to work with the US Government to contain the spread of COVID-19, inform citizens, and protect the health of our communities,&#8221; Google tweeted. &#8220;Google is partnering with the US Government in developing a nationwide website that includes information about COVID-19 symptoms, risk and testing information.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
“Google is partnering with the US Government in developing a nationwide website that includes information about COVID-19 symptoms, risk and testing information. (2/6)
&mdash; Google Communications (@Google_Comms) <a href="https://twitter.com/Google_Comms/status/1238989460127338497?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 15, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;This is in addition to other measures we are taking, including: a Google &#8216;home page promotion&#8217; to promote greater awareness of simple measures citizens can take to prevent the spread of the disease,&#8221; Google continued. &#8220;Work being done by our sister company Verily to launch a pilot website that will enable individuals to do a risk assessment and be scheduled for testing at sites in the Bay Area.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
“Work being done by our sister company Verily to launch a pilot website that will enable individuals to do a risk assessment and be scheduled for testing at sites in the Bay Area; (4/6)
&mdash; Google Communications (@Google_Comms) <a href="https://twitter.com/Google_Comms/status/1238989461767311360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 15, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;Promoting authoritative information through Google Search and YouTube; taking measures to protect users from misinformation, including phishing, conspiracy theories, malware and misinformation,&#8221; Google concluded. &#8220;Rolling out free access to our advanced Hangouts Meet video-conferencing capabilities to all G Suite and G Suite for Education customers globally until 7/01/20; advancing health research and science; and financially supporting global relief efforts.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
“Rolling out free access to our advanced Hangouts Meet video-conferencing capabilities to all G Suite and G Suite for Education customers globally until 7/01/20; advancing health research and science; and financially supporting global relief efforts.” &#8211; Google Spokesperson (6/6)
&mdash; Google Communications (@Google_Comms) <a href="https://twitter.com/Google_Comms/status/1238989463554084864?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 15, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Examples of those who pushed false claims surrounding Trump&#8217;s claim about Google include:
Charles Johnson: &#8220;So Trump just basically lied his ass off, dissed a black woman who asked a fair question, lied some more, got praised by Mike Pence, invented a Google coronavirus app that doesn’t exist, and shook everybody’s hand in the midst of a pandemic. The new normal.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
So Trump just basically lied his ass off, dissed a black woman who asked a fair question, lied some more, got praised by Mike Pence, invented a Google coronavirus app that doesn’t exist, and shook everybody’s hand in the midst of a pandemic.
The new normal.
&mdash; Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) <a href="https://twitter.com/Green_Footballs/status/1238624753398808576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 14, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
MSNBC producer Kyle Griffin: &#8220;Trump caught Google off guard with a bogus coronavirus site announcement. Google&#8217;s not making a nationwide coronavirus testing website. And the company had no idea the president would say it was.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Trump caught Google off guard with a bogus coronavirus site announcement. Google&#39;s not making a nationwide coronavirus testing website. And the company had no idea the president would say it was. <a href="https://t.co/eopL7awVs8">https://t.co/eopL7awVs8</a>
&mdash; Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) <a href="https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1238624674160001024?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 14, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Leftist Harvard professor Laurence Tribe: &#8220;Among Trump’s most brazen lies was the whopper he told the nation about Google’s supposed plans for an all-purpose Coronavirus website. He just made the whole thing up as if nobody would bother checking — and as if he knew his credibility was zero anyway&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Among Trump’s most brazen lies was the whopper he told the nation about Google’s supposed plans for an all-purpose Coronavirus website. He just made the whole thing up as if nobody would bother checking — and as if he knew his credibility was zero anyway <a href="https://t.co/kf8s9SVFju">https://t.co/kf8s9SVFju</a>
&mdash; Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) <a href="https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1238880310563143681?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 14, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
MSNBC writer David Gura: &#8220;President Trump and his advisers said Google was building a nationwide #COVID19 triage website. That&#8217;s not true. Verily is, and it is certainly not ready for prime time.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
President Trump and his advisers said Google was building a nationwide <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#COVID19</a> triage website. 
That&#39;s not true. 
Verily is, and it is certainly not ready for prime time. <a href="https://t.co/Vj2THA7p9T">pic.twitter.com/Vj2THA7p9T</a>
&mdash; David Gura (@davidgura) <a href="https://twitter.com/davidgura/status/1238599637780647938?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 13, 2020</a></blockquote>
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Google Debunks False Claims That It Is Not Developing A National Website To Track Coronavirus

The election prognosticators at the FiveThirtyEight website estimate that former Vice President Joe Biden is ahead in the Democratic delegate race by about 150 votes — 935 to 785 for Sen. Bernie Sanders. Doesn&#8217;t that suggest a close race and a long road ahead? They say no.
Bernie is now behind 15% to 20% in the national polls, and &#8220;Sanders tends to lose more ground every time a new set of states votes.&#8221; Democrats, who treat the prospect of President Donald Trump&#8217;s reelection as a &#8220;moral 9/11,&#8221; much like his first election, want to avoid any long-running Biden-bashing feud. If the Gaffe Machine is going to win, they will rally around him. All the empty chatter about a contested convention is turning out to be ridiculous once again.
The morning after the latest primaries, on &#8220;CBS This Morning,&#8221; Hillary Clinton&#8217;s 2016 campaign manager, Robby Mook, suggested there&#8217;s no need to pressure Sanders to get out. &#8220;There&#8217;s some time,&#8221; he said. Terry Sullivan, who ran Sen. Marco Rubio&#8217;s 2016 campaign, cracked: &#8220;When Robby says, &#8216;Oh, there&#8217;s time. There&#8217;s no need to force him out,&#8217; that means he&#8217;s a zombie candidate. It&#8217;s over for him functionally.&#8221;
A big part of all of this pressure to knock candidates out of the race comes from the press. If the pack of pundits guesses you have no chance to get the nomination, it proclaims you a &#8220;zombie.&#8221; In the current design, the media elites still have more power than the voters to decide who wins. In many states, voters don&#8217;t get to cast a ballot for their favorite candidate because the press has already pushed the candidate off the track.
Growing up in Wisconsin, we cheeseheads of all stripes resented having a traditional primary in April. States with later primaries were denied the up-close drama of candidates coming through their towns and asking for their votes. Even if the candidates were from the Other Party, the drama was exciting.
The last few presidential election cycles have seemed a bit absurd. Regardless of party, 12 or 24 &#8220;contenders&#8221; get in the race for all the press attention and unwieldy debate, and an indecent fraction drops out before the first primary or caucus. Most of the remainder is gone after the first one or two primary states. It&#8217;s easy to suspect that many of these candidates threw their hat in the ring to increase their speaking fees or build their name ID and gravitas with the pundit class.
In this cycle, even here-and-gone Democrats like Reps. Eric Swalwell and Seth Moulton were awarded the mandatory CNN town hall television time. CNN would rather drop dead than give Republican candidates (or Republican voters) that kind of exposure. Then again, CNN town halls reliably limped in far behind the other cable-news shows.
Even winning early can mean nothing within days. In 2012, Republican Rick Santorum won the Iowa caucuses so narrowly that he was a &#8220;zombie&#8221; before they actually decided he was the winner. A similar thing happened to former Mayor Pete Buttigieg this time around — a &#8220;winner&#8221; one day and pushed off the stage soon after.
There&#8217;s no reason to mourn a Bernie Sanders failure. It&#8217;s a very encouraging sign for conservatives that enough Americans are still suspicious of those going for utopian socialist power grabs with their dishonest shtick of flashing the word &#8220;free.&#8221;
But for people who claim to defend &#8220;democracy&#8221; from dying, journalists have no reservations about rushing past the voters to quickly anoint a winner. The game is declared over before halftime. Now there are no &#8220;smoke-filled rooms&#8221; where elites pick a nominee. Today the winnowing of candidates happens live on your TV screen.
L. Brent Bozell III is the president of the Media Research Center. Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Brent Bozell III and Tim Graham, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Sen. Bernie Sanders

BOZELL & GRAHAM: The Punditocracy Pushes Bernie Out

Bernie Sanders

The Democratic Party has spent the past four years cooking up anything they can to use as grist with which to impeach President Donald Trump. Now that Trump has been acquitted by the Senate, the mainstream media are clutching their pearls over the president&#8217;s &#8220;<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/06/politics/donald-trump-impeachment-victory-lap/index.html">vindictive impeachment victory lap</a>.&#8221;
Writing at CNN, Kevin Liptak lamented how President Trump gave a victory speech on Thursday that was &#8220;vindictive and angry.&#8221;
&#8220;There was no indication he planned to adopt a new approach following the ordeal. Instead, Trump spent more than an hour bouncing between disparate injustices and angry asides,&#8221; lamented Liptak.
&#8220;The formal White House event was meant to be the final word on the impeachment saga. But few expect the ordeal to fade from view; Trump is stung and angry at being impeached by the House and his allies say it&#8217;s unlikely he&#8217;ll let it go anytime soon,&#8221; he later added.
Speaking in the White House East Room, President Trump rightly minced no words in the wake of the Democratic Party&#8217;s failed attempt to forcefully remove him from office, denouncing the leading Democrats as &#8220;dirty cops&#8221; who enacted a plan that was both &#8220;evil&#8221; and &#8220;corrupt.&#8221;
&#8220;We&#8217;ve been going through this now for over three years,&#8221; the president said. &#8220;It was evil, it was corrupt, it was dirty cops, it was leakers and liars. And this should never, ever happen to another president, ever.&#8221;
On CNN, Brianna Keilar referred to the president&#8217;s remarks as &#8220;unscripted&#8221; and &#8220;vindictive,&#8221; adding that it was &#8220;at times profane&#8221; and &#8220;angry.&#8221;
&#8220;An avalanche of grievances &#8230; It was vindictive &#8230; it was mean-spirited, it was poisonous, it was spiteful,&#8221; said Gloria Borger. Take a look:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Keiler, &quot;You have been watching the President &#8230;. with an unscripted, vindictive, at times profane, angry, rambling response to his impeachment acquittal.
Borger: &quot;An avalanche of grievances &#8230; It was vindictive&#8230;it was mean-spirited, it was poisonous, it was spiteful.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/bi0urv9Y2Y">pic.twitter.com/bi0urv9Y2Y</a>
&mdash; Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) <a href="https://twitter.com/oliverdarcy/status/1225487462467801090?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 6, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Also at CNN, John Harwood <a href="https://www.mediaite.com/tv/cnns-john-harwood-and-panel-stunned-by-dark-trump-speech-hes-in-deep-psychological-distress/">fretted over the darkness</a> of Trump&#8217;s speech, asserting that it offered a glimpse into the dark depths of his mind.
“This was a very disturbing tableau for the country. It was dark because he’s made clear that his mind is dark,” said Harwood. “This is somebody in deep psychological distress right now. Self-pitying, insecure, angry.”
“With Donald Trump, if he did it, it’s not wrong. He doesn’t recognize abstract concepts like right and wrong, like morality or immorality, like true or false, he recognizes what is good for him in the moment,” Harwood continued. “And what has happened … what Mitt Romney has done by casting that vote, what Nancy Pelosi has done, has felt very, very unpleasant to him.”
Marina Fang of <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-impeachment-acquittal-speech_n_5e3c25cdc5b6bb0ffc0c7210">HuffPost</a> referred to the moment as a &#8220;horror show in the East Room,&#8221; lamenting the president&#8217;s &#8220;improvisational ramblings that appeared more like fascist propaganda than a White House event.&#8221;
<div class="content-list-component yr-content-list-text text" data-rapid-cpos="2" data-rapid-subsec="paragraph" data-rapid-parsed="subsec">
&#8220;As the former reality television host walked to his lectern, he received a standing ovation while &#8216;Hail to the Chief&#8217; played, before launching into an unhinged riff targeting some of his favorite and most frequently mentioned subjects, listing them off in a Mad Libs-like frenzy,&#8221; wrote Fang. &#8220;The speech, which resembled his ad-libbed campaign rallies, was held in the East Room, typically reserved for more measured and sometimes somber official White House events.&#8221;
</div>

US President Donald Trump

WATCH: Media Triggered Over Trump’s ‘Vindictive Impeachment Victory Lap’

Impeachment

Donald Trump Jr. slammed Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, as well as the biased way that the media has treated the Trump family, during a Fox News interview on Monday morning.
&#8220;Well listen, obviously, there&#8217;s the part where you&#8217;re watching this stuff go down to your father. But, look at me, for example, I mean, I&#8217;ve done 30 hours of testimony regarding a 20-minute unsolicited meeting, right?&#8221; Trump said. &#8220;Meanwhile, Hunter Biden is taking millions, is literally the start of the entire Ukraine hoax and they don&#8217;t even consider calling him. I mean, think about it, 30 hours in front of the House and Senate. I had senators on TV saying that this man committed treason, he must go to jail for life.&#8221;
&#8220;I mean, this isn&#8217;t even hyperbole anymore. The impeachment hoax started the day my father won the election, OK? It started — the articles were written before — during the inauguration, they were typing them, right,&#8221; Trump continued. &#8220;The Washington Post made the case for impeachment literally 20 minutes after the inauguration. This is what the Democrats have been doing from moment one, OK? When they were pushing the Russia hoax, my father was renegotiating NAFTA and he got that done.&#8221;
Later in the interview, Trump slammed Joe Biden over his struggles on the campaign trail, saying that if he can&#8217;t handle small crowds, then he will get steam rolled by his father, President Donald Trump.
&#8220;I mean, I sort of want to have Donald Trump go up against Joe Biden one-on-one for five months,&#8221; Trump said. &#8220;I mean, I see Joe Biden in front of a teleprompter speaking to 20 people. He confuses which state he is in at least 50% of the time.&#8221;
&#8220;You know, this is not a one-time anomaly that they would destroy Trump for,&#8221; Trump continued. &#8220;This is a recurring theme that’s happening over and over again. So I mean, one-on-one with Trump, you can’t hide the same way. So I’d sort of love to go up against him.&#8221;
WATCH:
<iframe title="Don Jr.: Trump is delivering despite Dems&#039; &#039;unprecedented obstruction&#039;" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ALJHdyfRlqo?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>
TRANSCRIPT:
<blockquote>STEVE DOOCY, FOX NEWS HOST: Very unfair to his family. You know what? We&#8217;ve got a member of his family right here.
AINSLEY EARHARDT, FOX NEWS HOST: We do. Let&#8217;s bring in Donald Trump, Jr., Executive Vice President of the Trump Organization and the son of our president. Good morning to you.
DONALD TRUMP, JR., EXECUTIVE VP OF TRUMP ORGANIZATION: Good morning, guys, how are you?
EARHARDT: We&#8217;re good.
DOOCY: Good.
EARHARDT: So, can you elaborate on that? In what way did you &#8212; was your family affected?
TRUMP JR.: Well listen, obviously, there&#8217;s the part where you&#8217;re watching this stuff go down to your father. But, look at me for example, I mean, I&#8217;ve done 30 hours of testimony regarding a 20-minute unsolicited meeting, right?
Meanwhile, Hunter Biden is taking millions, is literally the start of the entire Ukraine hoax and they don&#8217;t even consider calling him. I mean, think about it, 30 hours in front of the House and Senate. I had senators on TV saying that, this man committed treason, he must go to jail for life.
I mean, this isn&#8217;t even hyperbole anymore. The impeachment hoax started the day my father won the election, OK? It started — the articles were written before — during the inauguration, they were typing them, right.
“The Washington Post&#8221; made the case for impeachment literally 20 minutes after the inauguration. This is what the Democrats have been doing from moment one, OK? When they were pushing the Russia hoax, my father was renegotiating NAFTA and he got that done.
When they&#8217;re signing the articles of impeachment, my father signs a historic trade deal with China. That&#8217;s the difference between the do-nothing Democrats and my father. He’s actually getting things done, but he’s getting things done despite their unprecedented incoming, despite their unprecedented obstruction.
BRIAN KILMEADE, FOX NEWS HOST: Right.
TRUMP JR.: They’re not doing anything for the American people, and he’s getting it done and he’s going through his checklist one-by-one.
DOOCY: Well, you know how it works. Because the Democrats — Nancy Pelosi didn’t want to do it, but she had her super progressive —
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP JR.: Yes.
DOOCY: — left flank demanding an impeachment. She delivered on that, otherwise, you know, all sorts of members of her caucus would have been primaried by much more progressive people.
Now fast forward, she’s going to say he’s been impeached forever, but the reality is he’s going to be acquitted at four o’clock on Wednesday.
TRUMP JR.: Well, 100%, and that was it. You could see in the press conference — no, no, no, impeachment, it’s forever, it’s forever — because that’s all they got, guys. That’s literally all they got. That’s their little consolation prize because they needed that to do the things.
You know, you talk about Schiff earlier. I have no regrets. Oh really, you have no regrets? You were trying to call witnesses three days ago. What are you talking about? You blew it when you had it because you never had a case. You just had a media that was willing to accentuate your talking points, that was willing to do this as they’ve done with Adam Schiff for the last few years.
Again, I was a part of three or four of those major outrage cycles over the last three years where a CNN type, look, we got him this time because Donald Trump Jr. did this, because they got a leak from Schiff’s office as I was testifying, right?
These things were happening time and time again. There’s never a correction for the record. The intent is not to actually win. The intent is just try to manipulate the news cycle in hopes that the average American won’t do the research, in hopes that the average American won’t see through the lies. But honestly after three years of lies, you know, it’s a little bit of the boy who cried wolf with them at this point.
I’d like to see them start working with my father, get infrastructure done, lower healthcare costs, lower, you know, prescription drug pricing. All of these things that my father continues to try to work on despite their obstruction.
But I don’t think they’re capable of it, guys, because they’ve seen that Donald Trump, an outsider, can come in, can deliver, can go through the checklist of promises and deliver for the American people, and that scares these establishment-side people because they’ve never done that. They’ve had decades to do that.
That’s Joe Biden’s whole career talking about I’ve been doing this for 50 years. And what have you done? The average American can’t name a single accomplishment, but they can go through Trump’s checklist very easily.
KILMEADE: So it’s going — finally it’s going to be official. We’re going to get a result instead of speculation about reelection. 2020 begins officially today, Iowa caucus.
TRUMP JR.: Correct.
KILMEADE: The president speaking to Sean Hannity last night on the Democrats. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: I’m just going to throw out a name. Whatever comes to your mind.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: OK.
HANNITY: We’ll start with Joe Biden.
TRUMP: I just think of sleepy.
HANNITY: Hunter Biden.
TRUMP: Where’s Hunter?
HANNITY: Bernie Sanders.
TRUMP: Well, I think he’s a communist. You mentioned now Elizabeth Warren. She’s not true to it. I call her fairytale because everything’s a fairytale. That’s how Pocahontas got started. Everything’s a fairytale. This woman can’t tell the truth.
HANNITY: Michael Bloomberg.
TRUMP: Very little. I just think of little.
HANNITY: Hillary.
TRUMP: I think of email.
HANNITY: Pelosi.
TRUMP: I think she’s a very confused, very nervous woman. It’s — her worst nightmare has happened. I don’t think she’s going to be there too long either.
I think the radical left is going to take over.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KILMEADE: Well, the Pelosi aside, the others, let’s just look at the field. The word is that the &#8212; that the Trump team wants Bernie Sanders. Is that true?
TRUMP JR.: You know, honestly, guys, I don’t know that it matters. I can think of plusses or minuses —
(CROSSTALK)
KILMEADE: But he’s so different.
TRUMP JR.: — for all of them. I mean, you know, I think — I — look — I kind of want to run against a communist in Bernie, but he’s also got a very, you know, motivated base. He’s got people that are showing up —
(CROSSTALK)
DOOCY: Very.
TRUMP JR.: — for his rallies, right? There’s a viral effect sort of like what Trump had when they said we couldn’t win, so I don’t base things on that.
I mean, I sort of want to have Donald Trump go up against Joe Biden one-on-one for five months. I mean, I see Joe Biden in front of a teleprompter speaking to 20 people. He confuses which state he is in at least 50% of the time.
You know, this is not a one-time anomaly that they would destroy Trump for. This is a recurring theme that’s happening over and over again. So I mean, one-on-one with Trump, you can’t hide the same way. So I’d sort of love to go up against him.
DOOCY: Sure.
TRUMP JR.: You know and &#8212; you know, Elizabeth Warren, he’s right. I mean, her entire career, her entire life is based on a lie, whether that was school, tenure, law, you know, the universities where she’s making half a million dollars to teach a class, I mean, all based on a lie. I mean, I’d sort of like to run against that, and I’d say most of the rest of them are probably irrelevant.
DOOCY: Well, you were right about Bernie’s crowd, because they are very motivated. And again, he had the biggest crowd this weekend. They had Vampire Weekend performing and there was beer, which always brings out a crowd.
Donald Trump, Jr., we thank you very much for joining us live from West Palm Beach.
EARHARDT: Thank you.
TRUMP JR.: Thank you, guys. See you in Iowa.
DOOCY: You bet.</blockquote>

Donlad Trump Jr

WATCH: Donald Trump Jr. Shreds Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, Media

Donald Trump Jr.

Fox News

Hunter Biden

Shortly before a White House briefing call for the press on President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial on Saturday, Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley laid out the rules for media participants.
“The ground rules are as follows: Information on the call is on background and can be attributable to ‘sources on the president’s legal team.’ ‘Sources on the president’s legal team.’ And the call is also embargoed — the content on the call, rather — is embargoed until the conclusion of the call.”
Then he added: “As a reminder, you — by participating, you are agreeing to the ground rules. And with that, I’ll turn the call over to [sources on the president’s legal team].”
That’s how things work in Washington.
Reporters and the people they report on often — almost always — set out the terms of their interviews and phone calls beforehand. Big players like, say, a secretary of state, will insist on having some control over what’s for publication and what’s not. Usually, being able to move freely between on-the-record and off-the-record makes for a more open conversation.
That agreement is ironclad. Breaking the pact — for a reporter — means they’ve violated their word and their sources can no longer trust them. It’s the worst transgression a reporter can commit, and those who do it don’t stay in the business long. Word gets around quickly in Washington, D.C.
Which brings us to the bizarre tale of reporter Mary Louise Kelly, who works for the publicly funded National Public Radio.
Kelly sat down on Friday with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Before their interview, the reporter and her subject discussed the ground rules.
In a post-interview conversation, which garnered much press coverage, Kelly claimed, “I was taken to the secretary’s private living room, where he was waiting and where he shouted at me for about the same amount of time as the interview itself. He was not happy to have been questioned about Ukraine. He asked, ‘Do you think Americans care about Ukraine?’ He used the F-word in that sentence and many others. He asked if I could find Ukraine on a map. I said yes, and he called out for aides to bring us a map of the world with no writing. I pointed to Ukraine. He put the map away. He said, ‘People will hear about this.’”
But that’s not what happened, at least according to Pompeo.
In his own statement the next day, Pompeo said Kelly repeatedly lied to him about the parameters for the interview, and, by the way, wrongly identified Ukraine, instead pointing to Bangladesh on the map in question.
“NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly lied to me, twice,” Pompeo said. “First, last month, in setting up our interview and, then again yesterday, in agreeing to have our post-interview conversation off the record. It is shameful that this reporter chose to violate the basic rules of journalism and decency.&#8221;
“This is another example of how unhinged the media has become in its quest to hurt President Trump and this administration. It is no wonder that the American people distrust many in the media when they so consistently demonstrate their agenda and their absence of integrity,” he wrote.
It’s worth noting, he added, that “Bangladesh is NOT Ukraine.”
A transcript showed Kelly insisting on asking about Ukraine and former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who was fired by Trump. In terms agreed to before the interview, the subject was to be solely Iran, Pompeo said.
“Change of subject. Ukraine. Do you owe Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch an apology?” Kelly said in the interview.
“You know, I agreed to come on your show today to talk about Iran. That’s what I intend to do,” Pompeo said.
The two then had a contentious exchange. Kelly claimed “people who work for you in your department” say Pompeo has not defended his staff.
“I don’t know who these unnamed sources are you’re referring to. I can tell you this. When I talked to my team here — ” Pompeo began.
“These are not unnamed sources,” Kelly interrupted.
It all went downhill from there.
Jason Rezaian, an opinion writer for The Washington Post and a CNN contributor, blasted Pompeo.
“The statement released this morning by [Secretary Pompeo] attacking [Kelly] is a shameful assault on #PressFreedom. Americans deserve a secretary of state, that is diplomatic, can answer foreign policy questions honestly, upholds our values and respects the press. This one doesn’t,” he tweeted.
But Andrew Surabian, a former special assistant to Trump turned political strategist, laid out a completely different view, and got it exactly right.
“In what universe is complaining about a reporter breaking an off the record agreement an ‘assault on press freedom?’ If [Kelly] did indeed break an off the record agreement, she should be fired [and] her colleagues should be condemning her, not holding her up as a resistance hero,” he tweeted.
Today’s journalists don’t even know the No. 1 rule of journalism: Honor your oaths. And they won&#8217;t last long in this town if they keep violating it.
&nbsp;
*Joseph Curl ran the Drudge Report from 2010 to 2014 and covered the White House for a dozen years. He can be reached at josephcurl@gmail.com and on Twitter at @JosephCurl. A version of this article ran previously in The Washington Times.

President Trump Departs White House For Florida

CURL: Today’s ‘Journalists’ Don’t Even Know The No. 1 Rule Of Journalism

Journalism

Marie Yovanovitch

Mike Pompeo

National Public Radio (NPR)

Trump Administration

Ukraine

2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders&#8217; (I-VT) campaign was rocked again on Tuesday after James O&#8217;Keefe&#8217;s Project Veritas released more undercover footage exposing paid Sanders campaign staffers appearing to advocate for violence against political opponents.
The new video from Project Veritas allegedly shows Sanders campaign South Carolina field organizers Mason Baird and Daniel Taylor advocating for &#8220;extreme action&#8221; and &#8220;militancy&#8221; against political opponents and private property.
Project Veritas provided the following highlights of things that Baird said:
<ul>
<li>“I’ve canvassed with someone who’s an anarchist, and with someone who’s a Marxist-Leninist. So, we attract radical, truly radical people in the campaign … obviously that’s not outward-facing.”</li>
<li>“A lot of those people who do that kind of work, are … their politics fall well outside of the American sort of norm. So, they&#8217;re Marxist-Leninist, they&#8217;re anarchists, they&#8217;re these types of folks, and um, and they have more of a mind for direct action, for engaging in politics outside of the electoral system.”</li>
<li>“A lot of the stories we’re told in the United States about, you know, the gulags and the persecution of the Kulaks and things like that are exaggerated … we certainly don&#8217;t have, uh, a straight perspective on that stuff here in America.”</li>
<li>“We would need a federal government and a labor movement that is working together to strip power away from capitalists and preferably directing that violence towards property.”</li>
<li>“It would, it&#8217;s gonna take, you know, it&#8217;s gonna take militancy … like a militant labor movement that’s willing to … strike, and if necessary, you know, just destroy property and things like that.”</li>
<li>“… after we abolish landlords, we don’t have to kill them …”</li>
<li>“… once we break up Google, YouTube, Facebook,  nationalize these things, then that would be a huge thing forward so far as education stuff goes.”</li>
</ul>
Project Veritas provided the the following highlights of things that Taylor said:
<ul>
<li>“For me personally, I have no problem going all in on the campaign stuff because you’re planting a seed … yeah, the whole socialist thing four years ago was a whole lot more toxic than it is today …”</li>
<li>“We don’t want to scare people off, you first have to feel it out before you get into the crazy stuff &#8230; You know we were talking about more extreme organizations like Antifa, you were talking about, Yellow Vests, all that but we’re kinda keeping that on the back-burner for now.”</li>
<li>“We have all this momentum, where do we go, regardless of the outcome, after it’s all over? Change won’t come easily, regardless. Even if Bernie is elected, change will not come swiftly or easily, so the connections we make now in the campaign with people, and volunteers, it’s important we retain that regardless of the outcome. It’s unfortunate that we have to make plans for extreme action but like I said, they’re not going to give it to us even if Bernie is elected.”</li>
</ul>
The new release from Project Veritas comes after the group released undercover <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bernie-campaign-staff-bernies-a-legit-socialist-masquerading-as-a-democratic-socialist">videos</a> involving a paid Sanders campaign staffer in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bernie-campaign-staff-people-who-push-back-on-revolution-should-expect-a-violent-response">Iowa</a> and in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/another-bernie-staffer-allegedly-promotes-violence-kill-the-rich-put-republicans-in-camps">South Carolina</a> in recent weeks that showed the staffers allegedly advocating for violence against political opponents. The Sanders campaign has largely ignored media requests on the matter and even <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bernie-campaign-calls-police-on-reporters-for-asking-questions-about-his-staff-talking-about-killing-people">called the police</a> on journalists who pressed for a response from the campaign on the videos.
WATCH:
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