Trump got thrown a ‘softball question’ about coronavirus. His response was unforgivable.
On 20 March, US president Donald Trump gave a press conference at the White House on the new coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic. And during the conference, NBC reporter Peter Alexander asked Trump:
Is it possible that your impulse to put a positive spin on things may be giving Americans a false sense of hope?
This question was in reference to Trump’s suggestion that the drug chloroquine could be used as a treatment for the coronavirus. Chloroquine is best known as an anti-malarial drug. On 19 March, Trump said the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had approved its use to treat coronavirus. And while the FDA is testing it to treat coronavirus, it hasn’t yet approved it.
The attack
In pushing Trump for an answer for the American people, Alexander may have been conscious that one of his NBC colleagues died recently as a result of the virus.
Later in the press conference, Alexander asked the president:
What do you say to the Americans who are scared, though? Nearly 200 dead, 14,000 who are sick, millions, as you’ve witnessed, who are scared right now. What do you say to Americans who are watching you right now who are scared?
And as Vanity Fair reported, this was a “softball question”. So all Trump had to do was give a simple answer. But instead, he attacked Alexander, saying:
Q: What do you say to Americans who are scared
TRUMP: "I say that you're a terrible reporter, that's what I say."
Unreal. pic.twitter.com/RJ1aJXJUUh
— Pod Save America (@PodSaveAmerica) March 20, 2020
Trump followed up by saying: “I think that’s a very nasty question”.
Reaction online
Pretty soon after this, people took to social media to express their disgust at Trump’s baseless attack:
You asked a great question. And you’re an excellent reporter. Trump is a dangerous, incompetent monster.
— Jodie (@JodieHMoss) March 20, 2020
Some people couldn’t understand why Trump couldn’t just answer this simple question:
Peter Alexander throws @realDonaldTrump a softball question. trump could have so easily acted presidential. Instead he embarrasses himself with a rage filled whiff!
— Edgeycated (@Edgeycated) March 20, 2020
The crazy thing is, it's such a softball question. It gives him the opportunity to comfort those who are afraid and this is how he reacts?!
— Matthew (@matthewsolomon) March 20, 2020
And filmmaker Nikyatu Jusu was enraged by Trump’s reaction:
https://twitter.com/NotNikyatu/status/1241060577952366592?s=20
So the scientist has to step in
Reporters were also unhappy with Trump’s response. Indeed, one journalist asked for Trump’s scientist Dr Fauci to step in and take questions. That reporter then asked Fauci to follow up on Alexander’s question:
could you please… address Americans in this country who are scared right now?
Fauci then had to clarify that what Trump said was based on Trump’s “feeling” and not based on “clinical evidence”.
Real leadership
Some people say you know a real leader during a crisis. This is a crisis. And as we’ve seen recently, Trump’s no leader. He’s shown little to no leadership during this crisis so far and has instead relied on his own baseless “hunch” to contradict real experts. And he’s added racism to explain away the horrors of this virus calling it the “Chinese virus”. Trump has never been fit to lead any democracy, so it’s quite tragic he’s at the helm at a time like this.
Featured image via Screengrab – RealClear Politics
By forcing the hand of power, the coronavirus pandemic reveals radical change was possible all along
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Trump is indescribable as a person let alone a president, but guess what Americans think he is the best man for the job. What does that tell you?
It tells me that some are happy to use disastrous events to make veiled racist comments like that above.
Trump is eminently describable as a person and as a president – he’s a bad man!, and a bad president, Man!! (there you go). A great many people have already proven this already, and continue to do so.
Also, let’s be clear, you don’t know ALL Americans, let alone have access to what they are ALL thinking (let alone anyone else), and are implying that ALL Americans are ‘something bad’ due to the outcome of their democratic efforts, which put Trump into power.
If your premise is true, then the British (of which I am, and I suspect (rightly or wrongly) you are too) are equally as afflicted, because by your metrics, ALL Brits put Little Boris ‘Trump’ Johnson into power, and myopically sold out our rights, country, and democracy to America.
A great deal of Americans, and a great deal of Brits didn’t want either the twat Johnson, or the twat-king Trump in power, however, our jointly skewed and rigged democracies helped greatly to give MOST what they didn’t want, and when I say MOST, I mean compare the number of actual voters, with the number of actual citizens, and there your claims fall apart entirely, as there are a great many who didn’t vote for either.
As a start – approximately 330,000,000 Americans (North) and approx 50,000,000 Brits are citizens of these two nations, but nowhere near that amount voted in ANY elections. In fact you could argue that so many citizens are disillusioned by their respective corrupt ‘democracies’ that it is only a minority of Americans and Brits who actually wanted those two political freaks in power.
Trump and Johnson are cut from the exact same money-loving cloth, they are both extremely dangerous and damaging fools, who should never be in a position of power, and are like a great many other fools who think that money buys lasting love, life, security and peace.
The ONLY reason that we have fools and idiots like them in power, is because our respective systems and peoples have NOT learned the right lessons from history, in fact they have learned all the worst and wrong lessons from history, so that we may continually be enslaved to their corruption, and even as I write, plans are well underway and established to make that a permanent, unchallengeable reality, a reality which is here already, and is just having the final I’s and T’s dotted and crossed.
There’s no learning here at all, right or wrong. Learning?
Its just observing the consequences now as watching the fates unfold as in a Greek play.
Learning is an inspiration to do something different to solve the trouble.
One of Max Planck’s laws unofficially is an idea will persist until those holding in esteem die off.
Its that simple, and a puzzle why.