President Donald Trump reminded the media at the White House on Thursday of his decision to ban travel from China to fight the coronavirus, despite accusations that this was racist.
“In fact, it was your network. I believe they called me a racist because I did that,” Trump replied to NBC White House reporter Kristen Welker, who questioned if the president failed to properly prepare for the virus.
Trump accused the media of criticizing his travel ban on China when he enacted it on January 31.
“When you say I wasn’t prepared, I was the first one to do the ban. Now, other countries are doing what I did,” he said.
Trump said the United States would have suffered many more deaths if he had failed to ban tens of thousands of travelers from China from entering the country.
“The only thing we were not prepared for is the media. The media has not treated it fairly,” Trump said.