There's a Growing Chorus Calling For Networks To Stop Running Trumps COVID-19 Confusion

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3/23/20 7:00pm

Jennifer Rubin: OANN's Chanel Rion Is A 'Propagandist' And A 'Kook'

Why are these people in the briefing room for the COVID-19 pressers?
To fluff up the Trump-er-nutter, that's why.

There's a growing chorus calling for networks to stop running live coverage and streaming of Trump's horrifying COVID-19 "task force" press conferences.

The theory is that Trump is holding these daily disaster briefings because he can no longer hold rallies.
Helping to verify this, Jennifer Rubin pointed to a couple of extremely questionable "reporters" being allowed into the briefing room, whose job it seemed to be to fluff and soothe the ego-in-chief:
Sean Spicer and Chanel Rion.

You remember Rion, right? The one who asked with faux outrage if Trump considered "Chinese food" racist "because it's food that originates in China?" Then she went on to assert that
"major left-wing news media" had "teamed up with Chinese Communist Party narratives"
by calling out the language he uses surrounding COVID-19 as racist.

Jennifer Rubin had a great deal to say about Rion, none of it flattering, all of it accurate:

RUBIN: Yeah, I'm surprised there wasn't reaction in the room as this was going on to object. That individual is not a reporter. She's a propagandist, she's a kook, she's, she's a nut.

I will say one thing. If they are going to broadcast these things, no reporter should ask Donald Trump a question.
He's going to talk, but they should direct all questions to the experts.
He may butt in, but they should come back to those experts again and again. I thought that was one of the most effective displays when Dr. Fauci did jump in of saying, hey, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about.

It's dangerous. Stop. So, I think part of it is, if they're going to do it, stop asking him questions. And I do think we're getting to the point where there are other ways in which we can communicate this information.
Governors are reliable sources, the scientists are reliable sources, newsprint and online can directly quote from Dr. Fauci, as they are doing.
We don't need to inform the public by going to Donald Trump. That's counterproductive.

Why are reporters even asking him anything anymore?
Does anyone think they're going to get anything truthful as an answer?
Anything they have not heard before? Anything remotely helpful or useful in this time where we need sober, knowledgable heads to prevail?

Please, please, media, follow Jennifer Rubin's advice. Ask the experts. Not the dotard.

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Mar. 25, 2020

CNN and MSNBC Staff Push Back on Airing Trump’s Coronavirus ‘Lies’

Trump’s daily pandemic briefings have devolved into an “open-mic night” full of “misinformation,” cable staffers said, as networks weigh how much of the events they must air.

The nation’s television news outlets, especially the three major cable-news networks, are grappling with a nagging paradox as President Donald Trump continues to orchestrate his White House briefings on the novel coronavirus pandemic.

On the one hand, their ratings have never been higher, and viewers’ appetites for the live sessions have shown no signs of dwindling. On the other hand, journalists and executives at MSNBC, CNN and the often Trump-friendly Fox News—which scored an impressive 6.2 million viewers for Sunday’s installment of the Trump show, according to Nielsen—
are increasingly facing the likelihood that they are becoming an uncritical and unvetted transmission belt for propaganda and misinformation.

“These White House sessions—ostensibly meant to give the public critical and truthful information about this frightening crisis—are in fact working against that end,”
“Rather, they have become a daily stage for Trump to play his greatest hits to captive audience members.
They come in search of life-or-death information, but here’s what they get from him instead: Self-aggrandizement… Media-bashing… Exaggeration and outright lies.”

“I think the best way to handle the president in the briefing is that you handle the president like you handle the virus. He has to be contained and quarantined and his falsehoods have to be scrubbed so that they don’t rub off on you.”

Since at least Sunday’s briefing—when Trump joked sarcastically about
Sen. Mitt Romney’s self-quarantine,
complained about the “billions of dollars” he has allegedly lost because he’s president,
and defended his continuing involvement in his family business by claiming George Washington did the same—
None of which have anything to do in a covid19
pandemic briefings.
It is akin to his rally jargon.

Going forward, they said, they will be ready to cut away from the briefings when newsworthy facts and figures—usually shared by federal public-health officials such as Dr. Anthony Fauci—give way to unsupported presidential speculation and outright falsehoods.

“We might take it from the top and then cut away after the first lie, and return when the lies stop,” said one cable-network producer.

Regular Member Posts : 7317 Join date : 2014-07-29

trump lies.. fact
he misleads us
he bullshit should be banned
he is a danger
he can not stop his lying bullshit.

Regular Member Posts : 7317 Join date : 2014-07-29

March 26, 2020

Why are you airing this?’
Internet loses patience with Trump’s latest press briefing

On Thursday, President Donald Trump gave his latest press briefing
on the spread of the novel coronavirus, and what his administration
was doing to try to contain it and ensure the public safety.

Commenters on social media were not satisfied with his performance —
and some also criticized the White House correspondents
who let him lie and veer off topic without pursuing it.

Val

@MolenaVal
Another day, another #TrumpPressConf another bunch of lies.

KrASHLI Kardashian
@ashdmitch
Trump is going to kill us #TrumpPressConf

Malcolm P. Johnson
@admiralmpj
Okay @MSNBC and @CNN once he drops "Sleepy Joe Biden",
it's now a @#$%ing campaign rally.

WHY ARE YOU AIRING THIS??

Denise Wu
@denisewu
Hey press @CNN @MSNBC
stop giving Trump free airtime for propaganda.
There is life and death consequences

Stop repeating 2016 #TrumpPressConf

Jean Dunn

@jeandunn52
Wait, he just said he knows 2 people who had it
but never went to a doctor.
And no one pushed back on this? #TrumpPressConf

Bernie's Fizzled Revolution Is A Cop

@TerpGrad01
Is this asshole Trump bragging about
passing the largest relief bill ever?
That's not something to brag about
you fucking moron!!! #TrumpPressConf

Not Bill Murray
@StayWonked
The. Chinese. Don’t. Pay. Tariffs.
American. Consumers. Pay. Tariffs.
Trump. Still. Doesn’t. Get. It. #TrumpPressConf

Bill Maxwell

REMOVE TRUMP 2020

@Bill_Maxwell_
Trump can't "send people back to work."
First of all, he hasn't sent anyone home.
He hasn't closed schools, bars, and restaurants nationally.

Trump has done as little as possible.
You can't reopen what you have not yet closed.

Please ignore him and #StayAtHome.#TrumpPressConf

AuntieA
@AuntieALove
He wants the churches full on Easter.
Does he realize that Easter is a Christian holiday only?
So he basically wants to kill Christians. It is so weird.
#TrumpPressConf

Mike L.
@therealM99ke
The Covid-19 death rate is going to be
Trump’s new “fake news” in a week or two.
You watch.#TrumpPressConf

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CNN did not air Trump’s comments during Coronavirus Task Force briefing — only experts

An uprising around the country has encouraged cable news networks to stop airing President Donald Trump’s daily press conferences.
Critics say they have turned into government-sanctioned rallies where the president merely pats himself on the back.

CNN head Jeff Zucker said that he intends for the network to continue covering the briefings.

“We might take it from the top and then cut away after the first lie, and return when the lies stop,” one cable-network producer told The Daily Beast Monday.

During an all-staff call, Zucker argued that it’s important for viewers to hear critical information from the administration’s health experts.
The problem, however, is that there is very little news coming out of the briefings.

During one briefing Trump heralded company CEOS. During Monday’s briefing, Trump allowed the My Pillow Guy to overflow with praise for the president and say that the country was blessed by God to have Trump.

“It’s a very difficult decision,” Zucker remarked.
“As of now, we are going to continue to carry those briefings.”

When the briefing began on Tuesday at about 5:30 p.m., however, CNN was not airing the briefing. Once Trump was finished with his statement, CNN turned to the briefing for the experts.

Regular Member Posts : 7317 Join date : 2014-07-29

News should not air trumps misinformation
it can kill people..
Also-- he should Not be speaking
(only task team)
unless
an order as statewide shout down..
He rants for an hour mostly misleading harmful stuff
as this, today;

At Tuesday’s coronavirus press briefing,
President Donald Trump suggested that people
should use a scarf instead of an N-95 mask.

“A lot of people have scarves. A scarf is good,”
“There’s certainly no harm.”

Scarves are not a safe substitute for an N-95 mask,
which is specially formulated to
filter 95 percent of impurities out of the air.
Many scarves are loosely knit and
can hold the virus in the fibers.
and-
The CDC is considering a recommendation
that all Americans wear masks in public,
but there is a worry such a recommendation
could worsen the shortage of masks and
leave doctors and nurses with nothing.
......
And daily he’s held his nationally televised coronavirus task force press briefings, which are little more than toned-down campaign rallies during which Trump freely spreads lies and misinformation, and which the news networks all-too-often air live, unmoderated, and un-fact checked.

Regular Member Posts : 7317 Join date : 2014-07-29

Media Orgs Wrestle With Covering Trump’s Campaign-Rally COVID-19 Briefings

With a deluge of questionable information—and a White House correspondent’s potential COVID-19 case—Trump’s daily press briefings are now a dangerous journalism issue.

The COVID-19 briefings themselves have become a grim Trumpian sideshow to the catastrophic public health emergency that is sweeping the globe, and intensifying in the United States as new cases and deaths mount by the hour.

Media organizations are grappling with how to cover them, given both their factually challenged content and the notion that they are, in some sense, not unlike Trump campaign events, a replacement while his rallies are on pause.

Over the past week and a half, during these televised press conferences meant to inform and reassure the public,
Trump has misstated the availability of testing, embellished the use of an antiviral drug, rated his waffling pandemic response a “10,” made a seemingly glib remark about Mitt Romney being in self-quarantine, bashed the media at large, and lashed out at an NBC News reporter simply for asking what the president would say to Americans who are scared.

“President Trump is using his daily briefings as a substitute for the campaign rallies that have been forced into extinction by the spread of the novel coronavirus.”
“These White House sessions—ostensibly meant to give the public critical and truthful information about this frightening crisis—are in fact working against that end.
Rather, they have become a daily stage for Trump to play his greatest hits to captive audience members.”

For others the question comes down to the amount of guidance and information coming from the public health experts versus how much time Trump spends riffing.
“That’s when the judgment changes,” a second White House correspondent said,
“and I think you saw the networks making that judgment last night.
I don’t think there’s any particular value to hearing him riff for an hour and a half every night, because who he is, and what his personality and character and behavior are like, is pretty well established at this point....

TV networks are in a position right now where they’re trying to serve the country. The way to do that is to help people understand this pandemic, and if he’s not advancing that goal, that’s a reason not to carry it.”

Media's Hate Fest Aimed at Trump Works Frantically Twisting Facts Stoking Even More Panic
• Mar 31, 2020

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March 31, 2020
AP News

Researcher who literally wrote the book on presidential failure says she’s never see anything like Trump’s

“When presidents fail, they do so on a grand scale.”

Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Her book was published in 2016, and in the shock of Donald Trump’s election to the presidency,
I gave it a read.

As it documented the way much more prepared presidents had floundered when they needed to shine, the book terrified me about the prospects for a President Trump.

And now, as the outlines of the administration’s disastrous response to the coronavirus pandemic come into view, the book feels like an unheeded warning. I spoke with Kamarck to discuss her reaction to the unfolding events, and her assessment was grim.

“This the price we pay when we elect presidents who have no experience in government at all.”

Other presidents, she explained, have tended to have some form of executive branch experience or prior work as governors, in which they are forced to manage in a crisis.
But Trump came into office with no understanding of how the government works at all and no apparent desire to learn.
He often expresses surprise at the powers he or the government he runs has.

“It is extraordinarily dangerous to elect people who are discovering things as they go along,” said Kamarck, and we’re seeing why now more than ever.

“If the country is at peace and prosperous, frankly, we have the luxury of having a president who entertains us or appalls us as the case may be,” she went one. “Having outsiders is a disaster when we have a disaster.”

One of Trump’s major flaws, she argued, is his distrust of expertise. And that’s largely what the federal government is:
an army of subject-matter experts overseeing their own areas of responsibility. A president needs to understand how to use that apparatus to detect emerging disasters and respond to them as they’re coming. Instead, Trump dismisses these experts as the “deep state.”

“What most presidents understand is they need a system around them that accesses the expertise in the federal government.
But Trump has never understood this.
Under his leadership, the pandemic office at the National Security Council was disbanded.

It seems this made it much harder for the issue to make its way to the president’s desk early on, when active intervention could have mitigated the disaster we’re now experiencing.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar tried to get the president’s attention on the issue in January, but he struggled to contact Trump.
It explained:

Azar couldn’t get through to Trump to speak with him about the virus until Jan. 18, according to two senior administration officials.
When he reached Trump by phone, the president interjected to ask about vaping and when flavored vaping products would be back on the market, the senior administration officials said.

Kamarck argued that if Trump hadn’t let the NSC pandemic office disband, it could have come to him even earlier in January and alerted him that there was a problem, assuming he would listen.
It could have flagged all the problems we’re dealing with now:
the lack of personal protective equipment for health care workers, the insufficient supply of ventilators, the importance of an expansive and robust testing regime.
They could have warned that the Food and Drug Administration should waive its restrictions on private companies running their own coronavirus tests because the need to test widely would be so immense.
This failure was compounded by the fact that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s initial test was faulty, leaving the United States with essentially zero testing capacity while the outbreak spread for the month of February.
During this time, Trump consistently denied there was a problem.

“On the testing issue, he dithered for weeks and weeks.
The administration made a “fatal, fatal mistake, waiting for the CDC.”

The Defense Production Act, which he could have used to prepare the nation by producing the supplies we need now.
But he did nothing, and even now seems hesitant to use this power.

Instead of worrying about all this, Trump was worried about vaping, presumably because of how the issue might play in the 2020 election.

Some have tried to deny that getting rid of the pandemic office was a big deal.
But Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institute of Health, who Trump is now relying on consistently in the fight against the pandemic, bemoaned its loss before Congress in mid-March.

But it’s not just the NSC office. Because of Trump’s wild mismanagement the expertise in the administration is being hollowed out.

“You didn’t have the competency in the White House to pull this all together.
“So who is he left with? He’s left with Jared!”

Trump’s reliance on his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is emblematic of his disdain for expertise.
Kushner came into government without any particular policy strengths. Kushner has little apparent value but wielding preposterous levels of authority.

And while Trump keeps insisting that no one could have seen this kind of crisis coming, Kamarck dismissed this.

“It was totally foreseeable, you could see it coming,” she said. “I can’t tell you the number of times I taught the SARS cases study.”

Indeed, as it the crisis was emerging, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) warned that there were clear signs the administration was ill-prepared:

'''Just left the Administration briefing on Coronavirus. Bottom line: they aren't taking this seriously enough.
Notably, no request for ANY emergency funding, which is a big mistake. Local health systems need supplies, training, screening staff etc. And they need it now.'''

The closest parallel of a crisis like this that Kamarck could think of was World War II, which required sacrifice and contributions from every American, and it demanded the country come together. We were fortunate then, she said, to have a president who had extensive experience in government.

But there really isn’t any analogy to the present situation, because we’ve never had a president as incompetent as Trump.
And she argued it wasn’t a partisan matter; had an ordinary Republican become president instead of Trump, she expects they would have had a much better grasp on how to handle the crisis.

One passage of her book now feels eerily prescient:

The public seems to like outsiders who can say they’re going to come in and shake things up, but often, they leave disaster in their wake.
And Trump, of course, is the least experienced of all.

“We were experimenting with this kind of business, and now we see what we got,” Kamarck said.

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