Guests at Trump National Golf Club birthday party get coronavirus: reports

21:17, March 25, 2020

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  Trump uses daily coronavirus briefing to attack reporter

  President Donald Trump responds to a question by NBC News White House correspondent Peter Alexander during a coronavirus task force briefing at the White House, Friday, March 20, 2020, in Washington. (Photo:AP)US President Donald Trump called NBC News correspondent Peter Alexander a “terrible reporter” during Friday’s White House news briefing for asking what he would say to Americans who are scared about the coronavirus.Other reporters pushed back against Trump. Alexander later asked Vice President Mike Pence the same question — and got an answer.The same administration that stopped a once-daily briefing session with the White House press secretary now has the president and his aides talk each day about the pandemic on live television, and early indications are that it’s a hit. Friday’s news conference, shown by the big broadcast and cable news networks for more than 90 minutes, featured an old star in a new role: Trump’s first press secretary, Sean Spicer, asked questions in his role as a television host for Newsmax.In the last two briefings, Trump’s grievances with the media bubbled to the surface.Following a discussion about the use of a drug as a potential treatment for the coronavirus, Alexander wondered whether that offered a false sense of hope. He asked the president what was his message to people who are frightened, which Trump sarcastically called a “lovely question.”“I’d say that you’re a terrible reporter, that’s what I’d say,” the president said. “I think it’s a very nasty question and I think it’s a very bad signal that you’re putting out to the American people. The American people are looking for answers and they’re looking for hope, and you’re doing sensationalism.”He told Alexander, “you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”Four reporters — CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, ABC’s Cecilia Vega, the AP’s Jill Colvin and PBS’ Yamiche Alcindor— later challenged Trump or Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about the message it sent to be attacking the media during th...

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  Trump changes his tone, gets real on the coronavirus threat

  US President Donald Trump and Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Seema Verma listen during a press briefing with the coronavirus task force, in the Brady press briefing room at the White House, Monday, March 16, 2020, in Washington. (Photo: AP)He called on the country to come together. He warned of pain to come. And he deferred to the nation’s public health experts while at least momentarily putting aside petty squabbling.After weeks of trying to play down the risk posed by the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump struck a more urgent tone Monday as he delivered a sobering message to Americans grappling with a new reality that will dramatically alter their lives for months to come.The change in tone lasted a day. But it signaled an urgent new White House response to a crisis that’s upending American society.Trump’s more somber tone came as he addressed the public at a White House briefing and made a direct appeal to all Americans to do their part to haltthe pandemic’s spread.Gone were Trump’s “do as I say, not as I do” handshakes that had continued even after health experts admonished people to avoid contact and practice social distancing. Also gone was the rosy talk aimed, in part, at propping up reeling financial markets.The shift was informed in part by a growing realization within the West Wing that thecoronavirus crisisis an existential threat to Trump’s presidency, endangering his reelection and his legacy. Trump has told advisers that he now believes the virus will be a significant general election issue and he took note of the clear-eyed, somber tone used by his likely general election foe, Joe Biden, inSunday’s Democratic debate.But by Tuesday, the Republican president had returned to lashing out on Twitter at his Democratic critics.He went after New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, with whom he has feuded for days, incongruously chiding him to “keep politics out of” the nation’s response to the virus. He ...

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  Pandemic calls for global unity, not lies about China

  The ugly and often hysterical racist campaign blaming China for the origin and spread of the coronavirus is clearly meant as a slur on the nation that has in fact suffered badly from the virus and done the most to get it under control and conquer it. The intention behind the slur, driven by