President Trump showed reporters a White House-produced video during Monday's briefing in an attempt to shame the New York Times for c...
President Trump showed reporters a White House-produced video during Monday's briefing in an attempt to shame the New York Times for critical coverage of his coronavirus response.
The video, which the president said was produced by Dan Scavino, the White House social media director, showed - in the White House's words - that the 'media minimized the risk from the start,' but Trump took early action.
The White House team found audio of New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman saying that Trump's China travel ban was 'probably effective' because it 'did take a pretty aggressive measure against the spread of the virus.'
The video also featured a number of governors, including Democrats Gavin Newsom and Andrew Cuomo, praising the Trump administration's leadership on the pandemic.
Cuomo had rebuked Trump for suggesting he has 'total authority' to lift the coronavirus shutdowns against the wishes of the governors.
Earlier on Monday, six governors from states on east coast and three on the west coast announced their own pacts to come up with a framework on how and when to reopen.
President Trump's Monday press briefing turned into an episode of shame the press - as he lashed out against The New York Times, telling journalists he hopes the newspaper that has covered him critically goes out of business
President Trump showed reporters a video presentation at Monday's briefing in a furious attack on The New York Times for its critical reporting of the president's coronavirus pandemic response
Six governors from states on east coast - Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island - and three on the west coast - California, Oregon and Washington - announced their own pacts to come up with a framework on how and when to ease their coronavirus lockdowns
Trump's claims of total power were quickly refuted by Cuomo, who slammed the president for what he perceived to be an 'abrogation of the Constitution'.
During the media briefing, Trump quickly turned his attention to media and articles claiming the president was repeatedly warned about the risk posed by the coronavirus.
'So the story in the New York Times is a total fake, it's a fake newspaper and they write fake stories. And someday, hopefully in five years when I'm not here, those papers are all going out of business because nobody's going to read them,' Trump told the reporters in the room.
The story, authored by Haberman and five of her colleagues, detailed the 'extent of his halting response' to the threat.
ABC News' Jonathan Karl admitted to the president that he'd never seen what looked to be a 'campaign' style video played in the White House briefing room.
The Hatch Act prohibits the president from actively campaigning at the White House.
President Trump moved to the side of the press briefing room so reporters in the room could take in a video that he said his social media team produced in two hours on Monday to combat what he called 'fake news'
Before the video played, Dr. Anthony Fauci (left) took the podium to clarify some remarks he made that seemd to suggest that President Trump (right) acted too late - and could have saved more American lives
Trump, during his Monday diatribe, brought up Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, several times, claiming the former vice president had called the president 'xenophobic' for cutting off travel from China.
Biden, according to Politifact.com, never made that direct statement.
Karl asked Trump who produced the video for the president.
'That was done by a group in the office and it was done by ... we just put some clips together,' Trump explained. 'I could give you, I'll bet you I have 100 more clips. They were just pieced together over the last two hours.'
Trump then identified Scavino and his team as who put the clips together.
The president said he wanted to share this presentation amid the pandemic 'because we're getting fake news and I'd like to have it corrected.'
'They're saying what a great job we're doing,' he said of the governors' praises.
'And the reason they did was to keep you honest,' Trump added.
The video presentation was part two of what was already an odd briefing.
It began with Dr. Anthony Fauci coming to the podium to explain that he used a poor choice of words when he said that earlier mitigation would have saved lives.
Fauci had appeared on CNN's 'State of the Union' Sunday and said the federal government 'could have saved more lives' if social distancing measures would have been put in place sooner.
'Obviously you could logically say that if you had a process that was ongoing and you started mitigation earlier you could've saved lives, obviously,' Fauci said Sunday.
He suggested at the briefing that he didn't want it to look like he was assigning blame to Trump, who was standing several feet away from him when he made his remarks.
'I had an interview yesterday that I was asked a hypothetical question and hypothetical questions can sometimes get you into some difficulty,' Fauci said Monday.
He said he gave the 'obvious' answer that mitigation helps.
Dr. Anthony Fauci (left) and Dr. Deborah Birx (right) stand in the White House briefing room before President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence arrived for the daily coronavirus taskforce briefing
'That was taken as a way that maybe somehow something was at fault here,' Fauci said.
He then detailed the two times he told the president that social distancing measures should be recommended by the federal government - at the advent of the '15 Days to Slow the Spread' policy in March and then when Trump extended it another 30 days to take the country through April.
'At that time, the president went with the health recommendations and we extended it another 30 days,' Fauci said.
During the interview, Fauci mentioned being met with 'pushback'. He revised his wording on Monday.
'That was the wrong choice of words,' he told the journalists in the room.
Fauci was then asked by a reporter if he was walking back his comments voluntarily.
'Everything I do is voluntary, please, don't even imply that,' Fauci told CBS News.
The White House already had to come out and say that Fauci's job was not in jeopardy.
White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said Monday, 'This media chatter is ridiculous- President Trump is not firing Dr. Fauci.'
Trump had, however, retweeted a tweet that contained the hashtag '#firefauci.'
When asked about that Monday, Trump answered, 'That's somebody's opinion.'
The president denied that he 'elevated' that message with the retweet. 'I'm not firing him, I think he's a wonderful guy,' Trump said.
'Not everybody's happy with Anthony, not everybody's happy with everybody,' Trump also offered. 'But I will tell you, we have done a job the likes which nobody's ever done.'
The briefing came as New York Governor Cuomo said Trump does not have blanket authority to order the reopening of the country and cease stay-at-home orders,
He said on Monday night that the last time he checked the US had 'a constitution...not a king'.
Cuomo was joined on a televised conference call by the governors of New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Rhode Island to create a 'Covid corridor'
In a heated press conference inside the White House on Monday evening, Trump claimed that his office holds 'absolute power' over the shutdowns.
But Trump's claims of total authority were quickly refuted by Cuomo, who slammed president for what he perceived to be an 'abrogation of the Constitution'.
Cuomo also pointed out that it was state governors who imposed a variety of stay-home orders under their state constitutions in response to the outbreak of COVID-19, not the federal government.
Earlier on Monday, six governors from states on the east coast and three on the west coast announced their own pacts to come up with a framework on how and when to reopen.
All nine governors are Democrats and include Gavin Newsom of California and Andrew Cuomo of New York - both of whom have seen their ratings soar during their handling of the crisis.
In Albany, New York, Cuomo convened a virtual press conference with five governors of what he called the 'Covid corridor' - the states of Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut and Rhode Island which are joined by the I-95 freeway and Amtrak's Acela corridor and form New York City's vast economic hinterland.
Massachusetts and Maryland, which both also sit along the I-95 but are not yet part of the council, have Republican governors - although both men have contradicted Trump's position and said reopening is a matter for them.
The six Democratic governors revealed they were creating the first multi-state database in order to share information about the virus and help come up with reopening plan that would happen 'within weeks'.
President Trump addressing the daily coronavirus task force briefing with Vice President Mike Pence at his side at the White House in Washington yesterday
Cuomo, when asked about the president's remarks about his authority, challenged Trump to produce a plan and said wryly that it was 'interesting' that the federal government shrugged the responsibility of shutting down the economy at the start of the crisis but wanted to be the authority to reopen it.
The New York governor said: 'He [Trump] left it to the states to close down and that was a state by state decision, without any guidance really. He took the position that it was a state's decision and that the states were responsible for purchasing supplies.
'That was the model of management for this disaster emergency. If they want to change the model, they can change the model. He's the President of the United States. He's the federal government.
'Let him change the model. But change the model and explain it,' he said.
While deaths continue to rise in New York, the new death toll across the state is 10,056 - it is rising at a slower rate.
On Sunday, there were 671 new deaths as opposed to more than 700, which was the figure over the last few days.
The number of new cases across the state rose by another 6,129 to 195,031.
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