I think this is a really impressive effort by CBS News White House reporter Weijia Jiang. The transcript follows the clip. I don't recall a President being challenged in this way..perhaps no one else who held the office deserved it. - GWC
Q Mr. President, 22—more than 22 million Americans are currently unemployed—
THE PRESIDENT: Yeah.
Q —as a result of this. Today we hit the grim milestone of more than 40,000 Americans now having died from the coronavirus. Can you explain then why you come out here and you are reading clips and showing clips of praise for you and for your administration? Is this really the time for self-congratulation?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I will tell you this: what I’m doing is I’m standing up for the men and women that have done such an incredible job—not for me; for the men and women—admirals, vice president, if I might. But all of the men and women, thousands—tens of thousands of them that built hospitals in New York and New Jersey and all over this country in record time. They’d throw up 1,000 beds in four days. I’m sticking up for those people. Those people have been incredible. I’m also sticking up for doctors and nurses and military doctors and nurses.
Q But the clips that you played and what you read earlier was praising you and your administration specifically—
THE PRESIDENT: All I played today was Governor Cuomo—
Q Why is now the moment to do that, sir?
THE PRESIDENT: —saying very positive things about the job the federal government has done. And those people—
Q On the day where more than 40,000 Americans have now died.
THE PRESIDENT: And those—those people have been just absolutely excoriated by some of the fake news, like you. You’re CNN; you’re fake news.
And let me just tell you, they were excoriated by people like you that don’t know any better, because you don’t have the brains you were born with. You should be praising the people that have done a good job, not doing what you do. Even that question. So just so you understand, if we didn’t—
Q The question is: “Why now, sir?”
THE PRESIDENT: —do a job—
Q The question is “why now,” not “why are you doing it,” but why now?
THE PRESIDENT: I’ll tell you why now. Are you ready?
Q Yeah.
THE PRESIDENT: Because these people are, right now, in hospitals. It’s dangerous. It’s going to a battlefield. And I want these people—I want you—
Q This wasn’t about hospital workers, sir.
THE PRESIDENT: I want you and—
Q This wasn’t about the doctors.
THE PRESIDENT: It’s all about that.
Q This was about you and your administration.
THE PRESIDENT: It’s not about me. No, nothing is about me.
Q That was what you read.
THE PRESIDENT: Look—look, you’re never going to treat me fairly—many of you. And I understand that. I don’t even know—I got here with the worst, most unfair press treatment, they say, in the history of the United States for a president. They did say Abraham Lincoln had very bad treatment too.
Q Sir, the Wall Street journal headline you just read has your name in it. It talks about “Trump remaking the playbook.”
THE PRESIDENT: Well, that’s a positive thing, because that’s an exercise in how to do it and what to do. And that’s good for the future. People can learn from that. But I want the men and women of this country that are in danger—the admirals and the generals that have done a job like they’ve never done before. They’re in war. We’re in war. You know, I call it the “invisible enemy.” That’s the war, and it’s a dangerous war.
We’re also at a level when you said “40,000 people”—and you’re right: almost 40,000 people. And—
Q More than.
THE PRESIDENT: Oh, “more than.” Okay, good. Correct me.
Q We’re at 41,000.
THE PRESIDENT: Good. Well, I’m really glad you corrected me, CNN.
But here’s the story. Let me just tell you something: if we didn’t do what we did, the 40,000 right now could be a million people. It could be a million people, not 40,000. It could be a million.
We’re tracking at much less than the lowest possible estimate. And that’s a great tribute to a number of people and a number of things. One of the things that it’s a tribute to is what’s taken place in this country with the American people, because they’ve gone inside. They’ve done it. They’ve done a job that nobody thought was possible.
And, in fact, when they did the models, as they call them, nobody thought it was possible. They did models not based on this kind of success.
I’ve seen New York streets, and I see it in the morning—I’ve watched, all my life, New York streets—and you can’t even see the pavement, there’s so many people. And you take a look this morning; you take a look—even on Friday morning, I looked at it, I saw it through a camera—there wasn’t a person on Fifth Avenue; there wasn’t a person on Madison Avenue. I’ve never seen anything like it. Because people have really listened to instructions, and they’ve listened to what we’ve had to say—and the professionals. They’ve listened.
And those people—people should really give them a lot of credit, including people like you, because you just don’t have the sense to understand what’s going on.April 19, 2020
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