White House trade adviser Peter Navarro went on the offensive during a “60 Minutes” interview on Sunday night by falsely accusing the show of never covering pandemics that occurred before President Donald Trump entered office.
When CBS correspondent Bill Whitaker pressed Navarro on Trump’s failure to respond to early warnings in January of the looming COVID-19 pandemic, the adviser deflected with a bogus claim that Whitaker’s show had not reported on outbreaks during former President Barack Obama and George W. Bush’s tenures.
“I challenge you: Show me the ’60 Minutes’ episode a year ago, two years ago, or during the Obama administration, during the Bush administration, that said, ‘Hey, global pandemic’s coming, you gotta do X, Y, and Z, and by the way, we would shut down the entire global economy to fight it,’” Navarro told Whitaker.
“Show me that episode, then you’ll have some credence in terms of attacking the Trump administration for not being prepared,” he continued.
“I guarantee you we did,” Whitaker replied.
Immediately after the correspondent made his rebuttal, the show rolled clips of its coverage of the H1N1 swine flu pandemic in 2009 and the spread of H5N1 in 2005, which happened to include an interview with National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci, who currently serves on the White House’s task force against the coronavirus.
The New York Times reported on Saturday that multiple officials in the intelligence community and Trump’s own administration had urged the President to take action on the rising COVID-19 pandemic months ago.
Navarro himself sent a memo to the White House on January 29 pushing for the administration to prepare for the outbreak.
Watch Whitaker and Navarro’s exchange below:
When we interviewed Peter Navarro, the White House official tasked with coordinating national PPE supplies, he was, at times, more interested in questioning 60 Minutes' record than discussing the Trump administration’s preparations for COVID-19. https://t.co/ikzbCJrI5l pic.twitter.com/NQZOQwcI8y
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) April 13, 2020
Funny thing about untoward political dependency on the 24-hour news cycle . . . it causes you to “forget” stuff that happened, oh, only a couple of months ago, let alone 10 or 15 years ago . . . or, for that matter, memos you yourself wrote to your own boss.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL_aau28No4ETA in response to the video: “Lone Star: The National Beer of Texas . . . and String Theory”
And Mr Navarro, how would you like your crow served?
“Nobody knew video archives even existed,” Navarro said. “The Democrats just invented these just to impeach the president. It’s not fair.”
Challenge accepted and evidence shown…
Let the attack of the Trump Regime’s INCOMPETENCE and DEADLY INTENTIONS (OK to KAG - Kill AmericanGeriatriacs - for Wallstreet$$$) commence!!!
It’s not just Trump and Navarro that needs to be held accountable for their failures…MoscowMitch is one BIGLY Enabler-In-Chief!
Remember, MoscowMitch’s Pandemic Motto (via Hugh Hewitt’s radio program)
“ My motto for the rest of the year is to leave no vacancy behind.”
Addendum:
Those 52 RethugniCONS let lose the deadliest virus for America!
Hah, idiot thought it was some live interview and he could spew…
Dude, they go into edit and research mode afterwards. They were hoping for your BS.
And notice that they placed your interview after the experts, so that your lies would be flashing like strobes at a rave…