- White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney has suggested the U.S. media is exaggerating the threat of coronavirus to “bring down” President Trump.
- Mulvaney implored Americans to ignore the media and turn off their televisions for 24 hours.
- “This is not Ebola, it’s not SARS, and it’s not MERS,” claims Mulvaney, despite not being a medical expert.
Even the most hardcore Donald Trump supporters had to be rolling their eyes at what Mick Mulvaney had to say about coronavirus on Friday.
The chief of staff was interviewed at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland and delivered one of the whackiest sit-downs seen in quite a while.
Mulvaney claims it’s all about bringing down Donald Trump
According to Mulvaney, the closure of schools and impact on U.S. transportation networks brought on by coronavirus are no big deal:
Are you going to see some schools shut down? Probably. May you see impacts on public transportation? Sure.
All of that is secondary though to the real reason the media is covering the coronavirus to such an extent. To bring down Donald Trump:
The reason you’re seeing so much attention to [the coronavirus] today is that they think this is going to be what brings down the President. That’s what this is all about.
Trump supporters within the media have their agenda
Despite Mulvaney crying about the horrible media trying to bring down the president, it should be pointed out that pro-Trump media personalities have been doing the exact opposite of what Mulvaney is complaining about.
There doesn’t seem to be a middle ground here, and the coronavirus has become nothing more than a political football.
For every media source telling us that we’d better stock the cupboards and invest in some masks, there’s a pro-Trump source telling us that the coronavirus is nothing more than the common cold:
Now, I want to tell you the truth about the coronavirus. I’m dead right on this. The coronavirus is the common cold, folks. [Rush Limbaugh]
The expert opinion of Rush Limbaugh earlier this week.
It’s not about saving lives; It’s about protecting the market
Mulvaney was asked by a reporter what he’s going to do to help calm the markets. His answer? Implore the American public to turn off their televisions:
Really, what I might do today [to] calm the markets is tell people turn their televisions off for 24 hours.’
Mulvaney continued:
This is not Ebola. It’s not SARS, and it’s not MERS. We sit there and watch the markets, and there’s this huge panic, and it’s like, why isn’t there this huge panic every single year over flu?
Mulvaney and Limbaugh are plain wrong on this
Like many politicians today, these guys have decided to run with bits and pieces of information, but not the full picture.
The claims of media reporting on the coronavirus to help destroy Donald Trump are ridiculous. And so is Mick Mulvaney.
CNN medical correspondent and neurosurgeon Sanjay Gupta commented on Rush Limbaugh’s assessment:
This is a brand new virus. I think what Rush Limbaugh is referring to is the idea that it is from a family of coronaviruses. That is the family name of these viruses, and some of them in the past have caused systems that were more consistent with the common cold. But it’s also been the same family of viruses that caused SARS, that caused MERS.
The only thing we know for sure is that both sides of this stupid debate are playing political games that could end up costing people their lives.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of CCN.com.
This article was edited by Sam Bourgi.
