How CNN and MSNBC Are Reacting To Trump’s Coronavirus ‘Lies’
Television ratings are reportedly the highest they’ve have ever been as viewers tune in for the live sessions for President Donald Trump’s White House briefings on the novel coronavirus pandemic, CNN and MSNBC are pushing back on continuing to air his rhetoric that the two networks criticize as misleading at best.
Calling the briefings an “uncritical and unvetted transmission belt for propaganda and misinformation,” according to The Daily Beast, it’s uncertain if the networks still consider them necessary.
“If it were up to me, and it’s not, I would stop putting those briefings on live TV,” said Rachel Maddow host of MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show. “Not out of spite, but because it’s misinformation. If the president does end up saying anything true, you can run it as tape. But if he keeps lying like he has been every day on stuff this important, we should, all of us should stop broadcasting it. Honestly, it’s going to cost lives.”
Trump’s confident promotion of the malaria medicine, chloroquine, as a solution for COVID-19, reportedly caused an elderly couple to consume the poisonous version of the chemical, that later resulted in the wife to be placed in an intensive-care unit while her husband died, according to CNN.
“These White House sessions-- ostensibly meant to give the public critical and truthful information about this frightening crisis -- are in fact working against that end,” said Margaret Sullivan, a media columnist for the The Washington Post. “Rather, they have become a daily stage for Trump to play his greatest hits to captive audience members. They come in search of life-or-death information, but here’s what they get from him instead: Self-aggrandizement… Media-bashing… Exaggeration and outright lies.”
CNN and MSNBC both cut Trump’s lengthy briefing on Monday (March 23) after it started running more than an hour. But conservative-leaning network, Fox News continued to air the briefing that later turned into a town hall with anchor Bill Hemmer.
“Given we are operating in an unprecedented evolving hour-to-hour crisis,” a Fox News insider told The Daily Beast. “This was a major television feat to pull off and the entire town hall made news which any network would have been thrilled to have.”
Members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force are scheduled for a press briefing on Thursday (March 26) at 5PM EST.
