CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer accused President Trump of cowardice for concluding his most recent coronavirus press briefing Friday without taking questions from White House reporters.
Mr. Blitzer, the host of CNN’s “Situation Room,” blasted Mr. Trump after his latest briefing about the pandemic ended without the president fielding any questions from the press.
Reacting on the network afterward, the longtime newscaster called Mr. Trump “chicken” and suggested the president was scared to answer to reporters on account of them likely planning to ask him about the dangerous remark he made during previous day’s briefing about using disinfectants to treat COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
“Clearly the president was afraid of the serious questions he was about to be asked by the journalists who were there at that briefing,” said Mr. Blitzer.
“This is the first time that the president has been afraid to answer questions from reporters. Reporters who are all there, they were sitting in the White House briefing room, that’s their job to ask serious, important, tough questions. The president, clearly, shall we say, was chicken today. Didn’t want to answer questions that the reporters had prepared,” said Mr. Blitzer.
Mr. Trump ignited controversy the previous day by discussing the possibility of using disinfectants to treat COVID-19 amid ongoing global efforts to find a cure for the disease.
“I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute, and is there a way you can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs, and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it’d be interesting to check that. So you’re going to have to use medical doctors, but it sounds interesting to me, so we’ll see,” Mr. Trump said Thursday.
Mr. Trump later told reporters that he was being sarcastic, but Mr. Blitzer begged to differ.
“If you look at the videotape, and those of us who covered it yesterday know, he was not being sarcastic at all,” Mr. Blitzer said Friday. “He was being very, very serious.”
Mr. Trump has since shared a post from his Twitter account early Saturday in which the U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cautioned against improperly using household cleaners and disinfectants.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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