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President Trump tells reporter to “keep your voice down,” at a coronavirus task force briefing.

Wochit

President Donald Trump once again got into a confrontation with a reporter during a White House news briefing after being asked Sunday why he did not tell the American people sooner about the threat posed by the coronavirus

CBS News reporter Weijia Jiang asked Trump about a comment he made at a briefing on Thursday, where he said he was “angry” because the truth about the COVID-19 outbreak “should have been told to us a lot sooner.” 

“People knew it was happening and people didn’t want to talk about it. I don’t know why, but we’re going to get to the bottom of it,” Trump said Thursday. When asked, he declined to say if he was referring to China. 

“Many Americans are saying the exact same thing about you, that you should’ve warned them the virus was spreading like wildfire through the month of February instead of holding rallies with thousands of people. Why did you wait so long to warn them?” Jiang asked Sunday.

“Who are you with?” Trump asked twice as Jiang continued to speak. Jiang has covered the Trump White House for CBS News for nearly two years and has traveled with the president several times. During an April 3 news briefing, he told Jiang, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself” and said she asked her question about his son-in-law Jared Kushner in what he said was “a very nasty tone.” 

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After Jiang identified herself, Trump pointed to his restrictions on travel from China, which were announced Jan. 31

Jiang cut the president off to point out the restrictions “only applied to Chinese nationals” and not Americans returning from China. 

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“Nice and easy, nice and easy. Just relax,” Trump told Jiang. He continued to tout the efficacy of his China travel ban, and cited Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who has said if not for the travel ban, “we would have had many, many more cases.” 

Trump then repeated a talking point he heard earlier that day on Fox News, which pointed out the coronavirus was not mentioned during a Democratic debate in Las Vegas on Feb. 19, implying his opponents were also failing to make the outbreak a priority. (The virus was discussed at another debate six days later in Charleston, S.C., and former Vice President Joe Biden wrote an op-ed on the outbreak for USA TODAY on Jan. 27.)

“You’re the president. You didn’t warn people that it was spreading so quickly,” Jiang said as she and the president began to speak over one another. 

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Jiang told Trump that when he issued the travel ban, the virus was already in the U.S. Trump responded by repeatedly asking the reporter how many COVID-19 cases there were in the U.S. at the time he issued his ban. (According to FactCheck.org, there were nine confirmed cases at the time, but experts believe the actual number was higher because little testing was being conducted then.)

There was no widespread testing then, and there is no widespread testing now. That’s why the President did not have an answer to his own question.

As for how many cases in the U.S. it takes to spread the #coronavirus?

One. https://t.co/Ojj6AaOkzF

— Weijia Jiang (@weijia) April 20, 2020

“So, do you acknowledge that you didn’t think it was going to spread?” Jiang asked. 

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“Keep your voice down, please. Keep your voice down,” Trump told her. 

“I believe there were no deaths, zero deaths at the time I closed up the country. Nobody was there. And you should say thank you very much for good judgment,” Trump said before calling on another reporter. 

The president has regularly had testy exchanges with reporters at the White House coronavirus briefings, which are held almost every day. 

Days before his confrontation with Jiang, Trump said called her fellow CBS News White House correspondent Paula Reid “so disgraceful” after she implied he had squandered the time his China travel ban had given him to prepare for the virus. 

Contributing: Savannah Behrmann 

Report: Trump’s attacks on the press ‘dangerously undermined truth and consensus’

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