Friday during the White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing, President Trump leveled CNN’s White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, for suggesting the White House Coronavirus Task Force briefings are “happy talk”.
“Mr. President, we hear from a lot of people who see these briefings as sort of ‘happy talk’ briefings. And some of the officials paint a rosy happy picture of what is happening around the country,” Acosta claimed, without providing evidence.
“What do you say, I mean you watch the coverage, you watch a lot of the coverage … when the doctors and the men and women who come on the air who say we don’t have enough tests?” Acosta asked.
The president fired back at the CNN reporter: “A lot of its fake news. Depending on your [network] they always say that otherwise you’re not gonna put them on. Let me just tell you something: the governors have said last night– they had a group of them, 14 governors, they were together someplace. And they said, ‘It’s been unbelievable what’s happened.’ We’ve been totally responsive.”
“Everyone has the ventilators they need, to a point where we’re getting calls from foreign countries saying, ‘You have all the ventilators. Can we get some?’ And we’re gonna try and help some of these countries. These people have done an incredible job,” the president continued.
“This is not happy talk. Maybe it’s happy talk for you, it’s not happy talk for me,” the Commander in Chief expressed. “We’re talking about death. We’re talking about the greatest economy in the world. One day, I have to close it off. And we did the right thing because maybe it would have been 2 million people died. … Thousands of people have died. There’s nothing happy about it, Jim. This is sad talk. These are the saddest news conferences I’ve ever had. I don’t like doing them. You know why? Because I’m talking about death.” Continued Below
“I’m talking about taking the greatest economy ever created, we had the greatest numbers we ever had in almost every aspect of economics. … There’s no happy talk, Jim. This is the real deal, and I’ve got to make the biggest decision of my life. And I’ve only started thinking about that,” President Trump explained.
“This is by far the biggest decision of my life. Because I have to say ‘Okay, let’s go. This is what we’re going to do,'” he noted.
Acosta kept pressing over the medical supply inventory, but President Trump assured that states have enough tests, hospital beds, and ventilators. “We’re in great shape. … And I give tremendous credit to the military. This has been a military operation with private people. I give tremendous credit to the military, the Army Corps of Engineers, to FEMA, to these people. The job they’ve done is incredible,” the president said. Video Below
“You shouldn’t be asking that kind of question. Look, honestly. I don’t believe you’re really that bad of a guy. You shouldn’t be asking that kind of question. You should say, ‘You know what? It’s been really incredible what’s been happening’. … When you ask a question like that, it’s very insulting to a lot of very great people,” the president informed the CNN reporter.
President Trump’s full exchange with Jim Acosta:
