CNN’s John King Claims ‘Both Sides’ Are Politicizing Coronavirus

CNN host John King prepares for the CNN Southern Republican Leadership Conference Town Hall Debate in Charleston, South Carolina, January 19, 2012. (Photo credit: PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP via Getty Images)
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Gotta remember both sides, everyone!

Democrats have called for a bipartisan solution to COVID-19 while President Donald Trump and his advisers have repeatedly claimed that the Democrats’ frustration with his messy response to the disease is a “new hoax” designed to take him down.

But to hear CNN’s “Inside Politics” host John King tell it, both parties are acting exactly the same.

During the show’s roundtable discussion on Monday, Axios politics editor Margaret Talev said that Trump’s attempts to politicize the coronavirus “should be kept off to the side.”

“There needs to be an all-hands-on, nonpartisan effort to try to understand how broad the spread of this is now and how much of a risk it really is,” she said.

King argued that Democrats “should heed that advice as well.”

“Yes, specific policy concerns about the administration’s response, raise them, but there’s been politics on both sides, shall we say,” the CNN host continued.

It’s unclear what King was referring to. 2020 Democratic candidates have focused their attacks on Trump’s response to the virus, and Democratic leaders have consistently pushed for both sides of the aisle to work together to combat the proliferating virus.

Watch King below:

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Notable Replies

  1. Will they ever fing learn?

  2. Short answer: No.
    Long answer: No.

  3. “…shall we say.”

    That’s press-speak for “I’m making shit up.”

  4. I’ve defended these people in general but when this particular guy literally says “both sides” where it’s obviously one side, the charge of bothsiderism seems to apply. :angry:

  5. This is the mistake the media made in 2016, and why they amped up Clinton’s emails…it was the only scandal on her side compared to a ton of things on the Republican side, and they “had to be fair” and report both sides. It’s still making that mistake now, as each Trump press conference is a disaster but appears reasonable when the media reports on it and takes out the few statements that actually say something.

    There will be more of this, and it will hurt whichever Democrat runs; the only unbiased view of both candidates that the American people will get will be the debates (presuming Trump shows up), even there the media will have a lot to say about it afterwards (and again try to balance their criticisms). We’re well past the point where the media should report the facts, and then let the chips fall where they may after those facts are reported…if we don’t get that then Trump and the Republicans will, once again, receive an unfair advantage during the election.

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