President Trump returned from the holiday weekend to deliver an angry broadside against critics in the media during a briefing that included a campaign-style video defending his handling of the coronavirus crisis.
He attacked a reporter as “fake” and played clips of governors praising his actions. Not for the first time, it meant updates on the disease’s progress and economic relief came lower down the bill.
“I would love to be able to say that we have a very honest press … and I don’t mind being criticized, but not when they’re wrong,” he said. “Not when people have done such a great job.”
It was the president’s first appearance in the briefing room since Friday, and he appeared to have spent the Easter weekend stewing about a 5900-word New York Times piece headlined, “He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus.”
“It’s a fake newspaper and they write fake stories,” he said, introducing a three-minute video put together by White House staffers, including his social media director Dan Scavino, setting out the steps he had taken to tackle the pandemic.
“The media minimized the risk from the start,” read its opening caption before featuring clips of doctors saying the public had little to worry about from a virus that was less dangerous than flu, “while President Trump took decisive action.”
A segment of Trump’s announcements on declaring a national emergency and closing travel from China were followed by governors thanking the president for delivering ventilators and other help.
“We could give you hundreds of clips just like that … We didn’t want this to go on too long,” said Trump.
CBS News correspondent Paula Reid asked Trump what had been done in February to prepare for the pandemic.
“You didn’t use it to prepare hospitals. You didn’t use it to ramp up testing,” she said.
He hit straight back. “You know you’re a fake, you know that,” he said.
Trump has faced repeated criticism because of early problems with coronavirus testing, shortages of protective gear for front-line staff, and concerns that hospitals would run out of ventilators.
In the past week, some of his allies have demanded the rapid reopening of the economy and questioned whether the president or his scientific advisers were in charge.
And on Sunday, the country’s most senior infectious diseases expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, told CNN that earlier mitigation efforts would have saved lives.
After two days off, away from the podium, an energized Trump used the first 30 minutes of the briefing to rail against his media critics.
Jeanne Zaino, professor of politics at Iona College, said: “As so often, the substance of what he said was reasonable. A lot of the media criticism has been over the top.
“The problem is the style, and the way the focus is not on the health and safety of the American public but on him.”
Trump’s angry performance came amid another day of grim numbers. The United States death toll from COVID-19 surpassed 23,000 on Monday, out of more than 682,000 infections, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally.
Yet, members of the president’s task force had good news to announce.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said plans for delivering payments to Americans were ahead of schedule. Some 80 million people will each receive up to $1,200 deposited in their bank accounts by Wednesday.
And task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx and Fauci praised the public for helping slow the spread of the virus by following strict social distancing
“There’s still going to be a lot of deaths,” said Fauci at the start of the briefing, “but we’re seeing a lot of flattening, particularly in hot spots like New York.”
He went on to offer his own defense of Trump, saying the president had followed his advice when he and Birx recommended introducing mitigation measures.
And he clarified his CNN comments saying “hypothetical questions sometimes can get you into some difficulty.”
