Donald Trump Jr. brought attention to an NBC News tweet, saying American news outlets are “so obvious about” running “commie propaganda.”
NBC ran a story titled “U.S. reports 1,200 coronavirus deaths in one day as China lifts lockdown,” which highlighted the number of deaths in the United States, while Wuhan, where the virus began, is lifting its lockdown measures.
The story was tweeted from the news organization’s Twitter account Tuesday with the caption, “U.S. reports 1,264 coronavirus deaths in over 24 hours. Meanwhile in China, where the pandemic broke out, not a single new coronavirus death was reported.”
U.S. reports 1,264 coronavirus deaths in over 24 hours.
Meanwhile in China, where the pandemic broke out, not a single new coronavirus death was reported. https://t.co/ooXkR9X2L5
— NBC News (@NBCNews) April 7, 2020
The president’s son pounced on the tweet hours later, writing, “OMG! The bullshit never ends. We get that the media is rooting for china and running with the commie propaganda, but do you have to be so obvious about it?”
OMG! The bullshit never ends. We get that the media is rooting for china and running with the commie propaganda, but do you have to be so obvious about it? https://t.co/QBbknJiWx4
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) April 7, 2020
Some U.S. officials have called for an investigation into how the virus began, saying China has run a “disinformation campaign.”
“This disinformation campaign, which began when we began to call out this, this risk that was created, not only for the Chinese people, but now, we can see people all across the world, where the Chinese government knew about this risk, had identified it. They were the first to know, and they wasted valuable days at the front end, allowing hundreds of thousands of people to leave Wuhan to go to places like Italy that’s now suffering so badly,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in March.
Sen. Tom Cotton has also specifically admonished the American media for acting as “apologists” for the Chinese government amid the pandemic.
“The mainstream media are largely apologists for Chinese communists, and they will accept Chinese communist propaganda,” he said. “They immediately try to accuse anyone who raises these reasonable questions as conspiracy theorists that are accusing China of creating a biological weapon.”
