White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany pushed back on contentions from critics that when President Trump on Monday had an exchange with an Asian American reporter, who he told to “ask China” about the country’s coronavirus testing capacity, he did so because she is of Chinese descent.
“No, that’s a ridiculous assertion, but what I would note is leave it to members of the White House press corps to make it about them,” McEnany said Tuesday on Fox News. “To take a question, to turn around and somehow say, ‘How dare you ask this of me, me, me.'”
Trump’s new press chief continued: “Well, guess what? It’s not about me. This is about the American people. President Trump says ask China about this, ask China about the facts that they slow-walked information that alongside the WHO that American lives were put at risk.”
During a press briefing in the Rose Garden on Monday, CBS White House reporter Weijia Jiang asked Trump why he cared if the United States had the largest testing capacity in the world.
“They are losing their lives everywhere in the world,” Trump said in response. “And maybe that’s a question you should ask China. Don’t ask me. Ask China that question, OK? When you ask them that question, you may get a very unusual answer.”
Jiang, who was born in China and raised in West Virginia, appeared to take offense to the president’s remark.
“Sir, why are you saying that to me, specifically?” she asked. “That I should ask China.”
Trump claimed he was not picking on her but did not appreciate the tone of the question she asked.
“I’m saying it to anybody that would ask a nasty question like that,” he said.
Some critics saw Trump’s spat with Jiang as a racist display of bullying a member of the White House press corps.
“I think what we saw in that exchange with Weijia Jiang is something that has racial overtones,” said CNN’s Brian Stelter. It is racist to look at an Asian American White House correspondent and say, ‘Ask China.’ This isn’t happening in a vacuum. This is part of a pattern of behavior from the president that goes back many years,” the network’s chief media correspondent said before accusing Trump of having a particular prejudice for minority reporters.
McEnany, who ended her latest briefing with press members by challenging them for downplaying the risks posed by the coronavirus during the pandemic’s early days, said the reaction to the exchange between Jiang and Trump was a needless distraction during a time of crisis.
“China has some real questions to answer here,” she said. “But leave it about the White House press corps to make it about themselves.”
