President Trump and the Wuhan coronavirus task force briefed the nation Wednesday afternoon, and once again exemplified a unified front to the American people. Still, keeping with the trend of the last few weeks, several White House reporters asked blatantly partisan questions of the task force and President Trump.
Many in the press room jumped on the media narrative that labeling this epidemic as the Chinese virus is “racist,” and spared no time pushing that in the briefing room. President Trump set the record straight:
Q: "Why do you keep calling this the Chinese Virus?"
— CSPAN (@cspan) March 18, 2020
President Trump: "It comes from China...it's not racist."
Full video here: https://t.co/GwQnJ0pwmo pic.twitter.com/L1dD05z4RK
“It comes from China, there’s no question about that.”
— Katie Pavlich (@KatiePavlich) March 18, 2020
Despite the unfair coverage of his handling of the epidemic, President Trump still expressed his solidarity with journalists expelled by the Chinese government for criticizing the regime responsible for this epidemic:
Trump on China expelling American journalists from NYT, WaPo, and WSJ: "You know, I have my own disputes with all three of those media groups. I think you know that very well. But I don't like seeing that at all. I'm not happy about that at all." pic.twitter.com/QIwgboz2S3
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) March 18, 2020
This epidemic represents a crucial time for the nation, and everyone, including opponents of the president, should be standing together in the face of crisis, rather than pushing blatantly partisan rancor in the briefing room.