PBS White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor claimed President Trump is avoiding tough questions on coronavirus testing because he views them as “personal attacks.”
Alcindor recently pressed Trump on taking journalists’ questions too personally after governors denied his administration’s claim that states have a sufficient number of coronavirus tests to justify reopening their economies, earning a stern rebuke from the president.
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Alcindor told MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Wednesday that the president reacted with umbrage because he believes the media is trying to sabotage his reelection chances.
“The first thing I would point out is he’s starting to say that talking about testing is somehow a personal attack against him,” she explained. “I posed that question to him a couple days ago. And he said it’s not a personal attack on me, but people are talking about this because they want to take me down politically, and they’re thinking about the November election as they talk about testing.”
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During Monday’s coronavirus task force briefing, Alcindor asked Trump a question with the premise that takes questions about testing as being personal.
“You seem to maybe be possibly implying that talking about testing is a personal attack on you. Can you explain why you think talking about testing is a personal attack, given that access to testing has been an issue for a long time?” she said.
In his response, the president called the backlash he was facing “mostly partisan” and “incorrect.” He also criticized Republican Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, who said that a lack of tests is Maryland’s biggest problem in combating the virus.
Trump additionally warned that the questions could be political ammunition meant to harm his political career.
“But remember this, we are dealing in politics,” the president warned. “We are dealing with a thing called November 3rd of this year. Do you know what November 3rd represents? Right? You know better than anyone in the room. November 3rd of this year, it’s called the presidential election. No matter what I do, no matter where we go, no matter how well we do, no matter what, if I came up with a tablet, you take it, and this plague is gone, they will say Trump did a terrible job. Terrible, terrible.”
At the conclusion of his answer, the president said he does not view the questions personally “at all” and added that it is “not fair to thousands of people that have done such a good job.”
