‘Maybe I have a natural ability’: Trump plays medical expert on coronavirus by second-guessing the professionals
President Donald Trump likes to say that he fell into politics almost by accident, and on Friday, as he sought to calm a nation gripped with fears over coronavirus, he suggested he would have thrived in another profession - medical expert.
"I like this stuff. I really get it," Trump boasted to reporters during a tour of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, where he met with actual doctors and scientists who are feverishly scrambling to contain and combat the deadly illness. Citing a "great, super-genius uncle" who taught at MIT, Trump professed that it must run in the family genes.
"People are really surprised I understand this stuff," he said. "Every one of these doctors said, 'How do you know so much about this?' Maybe I have a natural ability."
But for members of the general public alarmed by more than 300 diagnosed cases in the United States - including at least 21 that his administration announced Friday were discovered on a cruise ship off the San Francisco coast - Trump's performance during an impromptu 45-minute news conference at CDC was not necessarily reassuring.
Sporting his trademark red 2020 campaign hat with the slogan "Keep America Great," the president repeatedly second-guessed and waved off the actual medical professionals standing next to him. He attacked his Democratic rivals - including calling Washington Gov. Jay Inslee a "snake" for criticizing his response - and chided a CNN reporter for smiling and called her network "fake news." And he described coronavirus testing kits - which his administration has been criticized for being slow to distribute - as "beautiful" and saying they were as "perfect" as his Ukraine phone call last summer that led him to be impeached.
The upshot was that the self-proclaimed medical savant came off looking less interested in his administration's unsteady efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus than he was in bolstering his own status in a campaign year. Trump repeatedly sought to judge his administration's performance by the numbers of how many have been shown to have contracted the virus and comparing it with other nations - and, in doing so, appeared to be making judgments based solely on that scorecard.
He declared he would prefer to keep the thousands of passengers and crew on the cruise ship off the California coast aboard the vessel rather than bring them ashore for quarantine, though he acknowledged that Vice President Mike Pence and other top aides were arguing for the ship to be brought to port.
"I like the numbers being where they are," Trump said. "I don't need the numbers to double because of one ship that wasn't our fault." He had been furious last month upon learning that Americans in China with coronavirus were flown back to the United States in a decision made by the State Department without consulting him.
Asked if a decision had been made about the latest ship's fate, Trump appeared uncertain. "Uh, that's a good question," he responded. He later said he authorized his aides to decide - and Pence announced at a news briefing in Washington shortly after the president concluded his remarks that the ship would, in fact, be directed to a noncommercial port where everyone on board would be tested.
For the president, the reporters' follow-up questions about the rate of coronavirus testing were a nuisance. CDC Director Robert Redfield and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar stressed that the administration had authorized tens of thousands of testing kits to be distributed. But as Azar sought to parry with a reporter by calling on Redfield to back him up, Trump, without looking at Azar, raised his right hand and waved him off.
Redfield said the agency had sent out 75,000 kits. Then Trump jumped in: "Anybody who wants a test will get a test, that's the bottom line." A few moments later, he jokingly compared the situation to his phone call last summer in which he had pressured Ukraine's president to launch an investigation into Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son.
"The tests are all perfect, like the letter was perfect, the transcription was perfect, right?" Trump said. "This was not as perfect as that, but pretty good."
Trump argued that the death rate in the United States - 15 Americans have died of the virus, though Trump said 11 - remains artificially high because many people who have the illness are not reporting to hospitals because their symptoms are minor. While experts have said that is probably true, the argument seemed to undercut Trump's efforts to minimize the scope of the crisis.
While explaining this, Trump appeared irritated by the reaction of a reporter. "You're smiling when I say that. Where are you from?" he asked. When she replied CNN, the president snapped: "I don't watch CNN. That's why I don't recognize you. I don't watch CNN because CNN is fake news."
The medical professionals around him smiled uncomfortably.
The president had a more positive reaction to Fox News. While explaining he had watched the network's coronavirus coverage aboard Air Force One en route from Nashville - where he had toured tornado damage earlier in the day - to Atlanta, Trump cut himself off.
"How was the show last night?" Trump asked a Fox reporter in the room, referring to a Fox News-produced, town-hall-style event in Scranton, Pennsylvania, that he had participated in the night before.
"Did it get good ratings?" Trump said. The reporter said he didn't know. "Oh, really?" Trump continued. "I heard it broke all ratings records. But maybe that's wrong. That's what they told me."
As his aides did their best to curry Trump's favor - they praised his leadership and sought to reinforce some of his pronouncements - the president opined on the falling stock markets, insisting he is happy that Americans are canceling travel plans abroad to "stay in the United States and spend money in the United States."
Though his CDC trip had been canceled over a coronavirus scare at the agency - before being reinstated after the employee tested negative - Trump boasted that he was taking no special precautions while touring the labs.
"Not at all," he said. "I'm not a person who has been big on handshaking. They used to make fun of me. But as a politician, you walk in and the doctors have their hands out, 'Hello, sir.' That's my business. I never thought I'd be a politician. But I feel very secure."
This is one of the more nauseating news articles I have read in a while.
Trump is literally disgracing the presidency of the United States in plain sight.
He is saying, in his own words, that the "numbers" , the political implication, are most important to him.
He has the natural ability to be a liar, crook, bully, buffoon, moron, imbecile, etc. He is the worst president this country has ever had
He didnt want anything making him look less than "perfect". He is a despicable human being.
it is
ALL ABOUT HIM and ALWAYS WILL BE
.
Even his daily Defenders are skipping commentary on the mental midget in chiefs
Extremely excruciatingly cruel for 'normal' Americans to endure,
cause when it comes to being President,
Trump is Russian Prostitute Piss Poor !
Not a single Trumpster has come on this article. Obviously they are hoping it gets no comments and goes away quickly.
There is no defense for what Trump said at the CDC yesterday.
There is NO DEFENCE for this attacking of the TRUTH, as his LIES will now begin to
KILL
his very own Ignorant defenders/followers.
And STILL,
NOTHING from the GUTLESS \GOP SENATE...
they all deserve to be REMOVED
as they are fckn scum !
''they have the tests, and the tests are beautiful''
LIAR !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It ruins his contention that the Obama Administration knowingly allowed Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian,
to fly to the USA from Africa to visit his wife and their 5 children. Upon exiting Liberia, he lied about having contact
with any Ebola patients. He had just taken his landlady to the clinic by taxi and when they refused her,
took her home again, quit his job and went to the airport.
Upon arriving in the USA he stayed with his family but became ill and went to Texas Presbyterian where he was seen in the ER, misdiagnosed and given some flu meds and sent home, in spite of his having told them he just arrived from Liberia, Africa, the center of the Ebola crisis.
Several days later, he was admitted to the hospital by ambulance, this time for Ebola. He died 4 days later.
THPH was sued, and wiped out the patients fees, paying the family an undisclosed sum for the misdiagnosis, mistreatment and death of the patient.
Now the Trump DHS brought back two planeloads of symptomatic people from China and Japan to Travis AFB...
But Obama.....
This, coming from the same asshat who said that he heard "some soldiers had headaches" when their camp was attacked in Iran; and, over a hundred had TBIs.