During yesterday’s press briefing at the White House, CNN cut away from the live feed after President Trump started talking about new anti-drug efforts to combat trafficking as cartels look to take advantage of American law enforcement while we’re dealing with the pandemic:
.@cnn just broke away from briefing. John King calls it “shameless” that administration set up coronavirus briefing and instead is touting anti-drug efforts.
— Paul Farhi (@farhip) April 1, 2020
CNN was particularly pissed that the president would use the daily briefing the begged the White House to give in such a manner:
President Trump uses Wednesday's coronavirus briefing to unveil a new military counternarcotics mission https://t.co/fp7jEDVtR7 pic.twitter.com/4054zuUjqG
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) April 2, 2020
Here’s their lead paragraph:
On a day when more than 800 Americans died of the coronavirus, President Donald Trump used his daily briefing on the pandemic to unveil seemingly unrelated counternarcotics operations that senior officials said would hurt embattled Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.
“Today the United States is launching enhanced counternarcotics operations in the Western Hemisphere to protect the American people from the deadly scourge of illegal narcotics,” Trump said.
And CNN’s John King was furious, calling it “shameless and political”:
—@JohnKingCNN: "To bring that into a briefing in the middle of a pandemic, the day after the incredibly sobering news the administration rightly fully delivered to the American people yesterday, it's shameless and it's political." pic.twitter.com/YNficTlq8Q
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) April 1, 2020
FFS. We’ve been begging these “political” reporters to give up their seats for weeks and turn the questions over to health-care or medical reporters, and now King is pissed that it’s too political?
Plus, all the had to do was wait a few minutes and IT WAS ABOUT CORONAVIRUS:
Alternate take: Many of the comments & most of the questions during this portion of the briefing were about Coronavirus. It’s also giving the American people confidence that their government is on top of multiple threats (cartels, Iran, etc), even mid-crisis. https://t.co/alI0H44PMx
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) April 1, 2020
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