The Trump administration has refused to admit even the slightest error amidst their response to the Coronavirus pandemic. Despite his own repeated public reassurances that he believed Chinese reports from earlier this year about getting the Coronavirus under control, President Donald Trump has begun lashing out at opponents as themselves supposedly too pro-China, and some of his shills like new White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany are joining in. This Wednesday, CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta poignantly publicly called out McEnany’s brazen attempt to steamroll over the past of the president’s own engagement with Chinese messaging about the Coronavirus.
This is key. There isn’t a political debate over whether China lied. China lied. U.S. intelligence knew that.
Trump decided to believe President Xi instead – because he gets rolled by dictators every single time. https://t.co/HpURRODnZo
— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) April 15, 2020
In response to a Twitter post that McEnany made accusing CNN of publishing Chinese propaganda for simply reporting on something from a Chinese government-owned media outlet, Acosta wrote, alongside screenshots of the president’s tweets praising China’s initial Coronavirus response:
‘Hi congrats on the new gig… perhaps you could hold a briefing and we could discuss these tweets…’
Hi congrats on the new gig… perhaps you could hold a briefing and we could discuss these tweets… pic.twitter.com/MmJP5RS5Yg
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) April 15, 2020
McEnany’s immediate predecessor, Stephanie Grisham, never actually held a single press briefing during her entire time as White House press secretary.
So far, the Trump team’s response to those pointing out Trump’s own past of taking China’s word for it amidst the Coronavirus pandemic has been deflection, deflection, and more deflection. Trump has even announced that he’s going to suspend U.S. financial support for the World Health Organization because of their supposedly China-centric response, but on January 24, Trump himself tweeted the following:
‘China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!’
That’s not exactly ambiguous. Donald Trump himself operated in a quite “China-centric” fashion amidst the early days of the pandemic, and now he and his team are spiraling to try and place blame for his own behavior somewhere else.
President Trump says U.S. is pulling funding to WHO because the group praised China's "transparency."
Below is President Trump's tweet from January 24 praising China's transparency. https://t.co/zVew3c212c
— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) April 14, 2020
Check out Twitter’s response below…
