Don Jr. on COVID-19 response: Media pushing revisionist history while calling Trump racist
Donald Trump Jr. and Brian Kilmeade discuss the media's disrespect for President Trump amid the COVID-19 crisis
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The Democrats and the mainstream media will never give President Trump the benefit of the doubt, especially in matters related to the coronavirus pandemic, because of their innate hatred for him and his administration, Donald Trump Jr. said Tuesday.
Appearing on "The Kilmeade Show" with host Brian Kilmeade, Trump Jr. said that the media's disrespect for the president at Monday's daily news briefing was par for the course.
"You don't get used to it, per se. But, it's certainly frustrating enough that, as you know, I wrote a book about it," he remarked. "It's sad when you see that sort of thing."
"Now, I know my father's a fighter, so he's going to push back. And, frankly, I don't think anyone's taken, sort of, the incoming that they have. But, you know, whenever something appears to be going even moderately well for him, they have to try to step in on that," he continued.
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For around the first 40 minutes of testy coverage – during which some networks like MSNBC and CNN dipped out – President Trump and White House reporters sparred after he aired a video montage of the media's initial takes on the outbreak, featuring clips from ABC News, NBC News and CBS News journalists and commentators expressing more concern about the common flu than the disease that was plaguing China at the time.
The video presentation boasted the "decisive action" the president took with a timeline featuring his founding of the coronavirus task force, the travel restrictions on China, and Trump's call to "accelerate" development for a vaccine for the virus in early March — all moves which have been called into question by journalists.
"We're getting fake news and I would like to have it corrected," Trump added, later saying, "I don't mind being criticized, but not when they're wrong."
President Donald Trump watches as a White House produced video plays during a briefing about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Monday, April 13, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
The president also claimed – despite constitutional limitations – that he has "total" authority to decide when and how to reopen the economy after weeks of precautionary health and safety measures were put in place to help fight in the battle against the highly infectious disease.
“When somebody is president of the United States, the authority is total,” he stated. “The governors know that.”
The president previously aimed to reopen America's economy on Easter Sunday but pivoted after listening to projections from scientists. The economy was once arguably the president's largest 2020 campaign issue, but coronavirus has changed the game.
The president's son said he believes his father has gotten ahead of the virus, but that the "new push" for the media is "revisionist history" in their favor. Trump Jr. pointed at NAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci's visibly frustrated reaction to a hypothetical question about mitigation.
"Yeah, sure, if you started imaginary mitigation for a problem that no one knew existed and no one believed existed and all of the clips show that including Fauci himself, who at February 28 was saying, 'No, no, no we don't think this is a big deal,' Dr. Birx saying, 'No, we thought it was going to be like SARS' — you know, World Health Organization, the media, everyone..." Trump told Kilmeade.
"But, now that they realize, frankly, the No. 1 thing that he could have done I guess even according to Maggie Haberman of The New York Times was shutting down travel from Wuhan."
"Now, he did that [at] the end of January and Joe Biden, the Democrats, and everyone in the mainstream media rushed to call him, you know, racist and xenophobic for doing that," he noted. "Well, it turns out that was the No. 1 thing."
"So, you know, I think for him it's frustrating. He just wants to get this solved for the American people. He wants to get the economy going again and get that started. You have to do so safely and intelligently," Trump explained.
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"He's in a tough position because they will never give him any benefit of the doubt," he asserted.
"It's insane at this point. That's sort of the lens by which we've seen this stuff go in now for four years," Trump concluded. "I just think it's becoming more apparent to the American public who probably and understandably could never imagine how bad it really is and how much they truly hate Trump and are really hoping for him to fail at this thing."
Fox News' Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.
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