Trump Increases Hostility Toward Reporters Questioning His Handling Of Coronavirus Crisis
President Donald Trump spent a portion of his daily coronavirus briefing on Sunday attacking White House reporters who asked objective questions about his past remarks about the coronavirus crisis.
Trump, who has always had a tense relationship with the news media, denied and attacked two different reporters who read a quote from the president back to him. He first went after PBS NewsHour’s Yamiche Alcindor ― a reporter who the president has regularly attacked as the pandemic continues.
Here is the transcript of the portion from Fox News where Trump did say what he just told @Yamiche
he didn't say.
Q: The first is you said repeatedly that you think some of the equipment that governors are requesting, they don't actually need. You said -- Trump: I didn't say it pic.twitter.com/cvVw5lbvYl— Katherine Faulders (@KFaulders) March 29, 2020
Alcindor began her question by directly quoting Trump from a recent interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, in which the president said he does not believe New York needs all the ventilators that Gov. Andrew Cuomo said they did.
“And you know a lot ― a lot of equipment’s being asked for that I don’t think they’ll need but I’m building,” Trump told Hannity, according to the transcript. “You know, we’re building four hospitals, four medical centers and many other things we’ve developed and sent thousands of ― thousands of ventilators.”
When Alcindor asked Trump on Sunday how that thinking will impact how he fills equipment orders, the president denied that he ever made the comments on Hannity’s show.
Why don’t “you people” act “a little more positive?” Trump told Alcindor as she continued to try and finish her question. “Let me tell you something. Be nice. Don’t be threatening, don’t be threatening. Be nice.”
Trump then had Alcindor’s microphone taken away when she tried to ask her second question.
