At a press conference on Monday at the White House that was supposed to be about the Trump administration’s attempts to ramp up Coronavirus testing in the United States, the president stormed off after a question from CBS reporter Weijia Jiang about why he was insisting on treating testing like a competition while Americans lives hang in the balance. Following Trump’s meltdown, CNN aired a montage of some of the president’s previous meltdowns when faced with tough questions from women in the White House press pool, and the montage, which stretched back over a period of years, pointedly indicated just how paranoid and self-obsessed that the president really is.
The footage begins with a clip from early 2017, when he mockingly asked black reporter April Ryan if she was friends with the members of the Congressional Black Caucus. At another point in the footage, there’s a clip of Trump petulantly melting down at reporter Yamiche Alcindor, to whom he ranted:
‘Why don’t you act in a little more positive manner? It’s always trying to getcha, getcha, getcha, and you know what? That’s why nobody trusts the media anymore. That’s you used to work for The Times and now you work for somebody else. Look, let me tell you something: be nice. Don’t be threatening.’
Check out the montage below:
In just about any other presidency imaginable, the president melting down and demanding that a female reporter “be nice” would likely be a major scandal. In the Trump era, the scandal of those remarks is one of many. Imagine, however, how wildly that Republicans would likely flip out if, say, Barack Obama addressed a female reporter from Fox that way. The GOP’s self-righteous moral outrage is selective, at best.
In the most recent incident, Trump responded to Chinese-American reporter Weijia Jiang’s question by telling her she should ask China. When asked the follow-up question of why he was telling her specifically that she should ask China, he freaked out and was gone from the podium within minutes. The slightest pressure has him spiraling.
Trump remains self-obsessed throughout the whole ordeal. This Tuesday, he tweeted the nonsense:
‘Remember this, every Governor who has sky high approval on their handling of the Coronavirus, and I am happy for them all, could in no way have gotten those numbers, or had that success, without me and the Federal Governments help. From Ventilators to Testing, we made it happen!’
Remember this, every Governor who has sky high approval on their handling of the Coronavirus, and I am happy for them all, could in no way have gotten those numbers, or had that success, without me and the Federal Governments help. From Ventilators to Testing, we made it happen!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2020
Oh really? In reality, the state of Maryland alone ordered half a million Coronavirus tests from South Korea. Over and over again, Trump complained to all who would listen about states’ requests for urgent assistance, and now that his own political chances are more in jeopardy, he’s trying to take credit for what he’d been whining about getting asked to do not that long ago at all.
Trump’s ignorance could be costing Americans their lives. This Tuesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci is slated to warn the Senate that reopening the economy too quickly could result in “needless suffering and death” from the Coronavirus among Americans.
