Watch: Dr Fauci Has Had Enough And Scolds CNN’s Acosta For Twisting His Words
Even Obama holdover Dr. Fauci has had enough of CNN’s Jim Acosta and scolded him for taking him out of context.
Acosta asked during the press conference asked if the United States could have prevented more deaths if they released social distancing guidelines sooner.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leading member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, called out CNN’s Jim Acosta for trying to prompt a sound bite by repeatedly asking whether the current death rates could have been reduced had the guidelines been enacted sooner.
In the video below keep an eye on Dr. Birx who had just explained finished explaining how the measures President Trump enacted saved American lives. As Dr. Fauci is answering Acosta she is grimacing and biting her tongue at Acosta.
“If there was no virus in the background, there was nothing to mitigate. If there was a virus there that we didn’t know about, then the answer to your question is probably yes,” he said.
Fauci added, “The only trouble with that is that whenever you come out and say something like that, it always becomes almost a soundbite that gets taken out of context.”
Both Birx and Fauci said they have no idea when the virus started infecting American, even though cases were not apparent.
“In a perfect world, it would have been nice to know what was going on there, and we didn’t,” he said. “But I believe, Jim, that we acted very, very early in that.”
President Donald Trump added that he acted early and stopped travel from China at the end of January to help prevent the virus from spreading.
“We were very early, and I also think we were very smart,” he said.
Acosta was trying to get a soundbite from Dr. Fauci to get him to say the President should have acted early and Fauci wasn’t going to give it to him.
Throughout the press conference, CNN’s Jim Acosta was trying to play gotcha, the coronavirus task force spent almost 20 minutes answering questions from him.
Acosta asked about 15 different questions and kept interrupting and trying to play “gotcha” with the President and the members of the team.
In a lengthy exchange, Acosta claimed that President Trump “lulled Americans into a false sense of security.”
President Trump calmly dismantled him.
“I think from the beginning my attitude was that we have to give this country – I know how bad it was. All you have to do is look at what was going on in China. It was devastation. Look at the numbers from China, those initial numbers coming out from China.
But, I read an article today, which was very interesting. They say ‘we wish President Trump would give more bad news. Give bad news.’ I’m not about bad news. I want to give people hope. I want to give people a feeling that we all have a chance.
I mean, when you saw the numbers … and you’re saying 120,000 people. You mean that’s good? 120,000 dead people within a short period of time. I want to give people a feeling of hope.
I could be very negative and say ‘wait a minute. Those numbers are terrible, this is going to be horrible. This is a horrible thing.”
“I want to be positive. I don’t want to be negative. I’m a positive person. Somebody said ‘oh, I wish he’d be more negative.’ Well, this is really easy to be more negative about. But I want to give people hope, too. You know, I’m a cheerleader for the country. We’re going through the worst thing that the country’s probably ever seen.”
Jim Acosta to President Trump:
“Is there any fairness to the criticism that you lulled Americans into a false sense of security when you were saying things like “it’s going to go away?” pic.twitter.com/Blz2WEnDON
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) March 31, 2020
