Friday on CNN’s “The Lead,” anchor Jake Tapper criticized President Donald Trump’s focus and comments on mail-in voting and coronavirus testing.
Tapper said, “In our politics lead, we are 94 days away from the presidential election. And President Trump down in the polls continuing to face a deadly pandemic and economic catastrophe continues to focus instead on conspiracy theories in an apparent attempt to preemptively undermine the results of the November 3 election.”
In a clip, Trump said, “This is going to be the greatest election disaster in history. It’ll be fixed. It’ll be rigged.”
Tapper said, “No evidence of any of that, of course. The Trump campaign is currently suspending tv ads until its new campaign manager, and his team can figure out their new message. The irony, of course, is that if the president put the full weight of the federal government towards containing this pandemic, which has cost more than 150,000 Americans their lives, instead of focusing so much on his re-election, he would be in much better shape politically.”
On coronavirus testing, CNN White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins said, “Trump criticized congressman Jim Clyburn after he showed a graph during today’s hearing and asked top experts to explain why the U.S. has not been able to get a grip on the virus in the way that Europe has.”
She continued, “Trump asked somebody to please tell Congressman Clyburn, who doesn’t have a clue that it’s because we do much more testing. Dr. Anthony Fauci had a different explanation saying it’s due in part to how the U.S. shut down.”
In a clip, Dr. Fauci said, “When you actually look at what we did even though we shut down, even though it created a great deal of difficulty, we really functionally shut down only about 50%.”
Collins said, “Now, Jake, for the hundredth time, even the public health experts in this administration have said the reason there are more cases in the U.S. is not just because there is more testing. It’s because the virus is spreading throughout the country. When Dr. Fauci was read the president’s tweet directed at Congressman Clyburn, he said he stands by what he said earlier, that it is due to a number of factors, not just because there’s more testing.”
Tapper concluded, “No, it’s nonsense, but the president continues to spout it anyway.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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