Chris Wallace Says Trump Coronavirus Presser ‘Clearly Didn’t’ Ease Concerns: ‘The Next Day The Markets Fell’
Fox News anchor Chris Wallace had some relatively sharp criticism for President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak, saying that Trump’s press conference “clearly didn’t” ease concerns, and that combined with his earlier comments, it contributed to the stock market crashing this week.
On Friday morning’s edition of Fox News’ America’s Newsroom, host Ed Henry cited a particular Washington Post article, and said”I get that it’s in the political arena, but you have outlets like the Washington Post writing that a lot of the steps the administration has taken have actually been good.”
The article actually contains criticism from experts on the Trump administration’s handling of the crisis.
Wallace apparently hadn’t read the article either, but he did echo some of those same criticisms.
“Well, absolutely, but one of the questions here is public confidence, and clearly the president wanted to hold that press conference on Wednesday with the array of health officials from CDC and HHS and the whole government alphabet, if you will, of agencies to ease people’s concerns,” Wallace said, referring to the presser at which Trump announced he was making Vice President Mike Pence the point man for the response, and contradicted his own experts in real time.
Wallace said that “clearly it didn’t do that, because the next day the markets fell, what, 1200 points, the biggest single day drop in the history of the Dow Jones. Today it’s down what, another 973, you know we’re going to be down several thousand points this week. So it hasn’t eased people’s concerns.”
“Again, part of it is panic and part of it is also a concern, I think, that early on you did see this kind of mixed messaging where the president seemed to be more optimistic about how the U.S. was handling the coronavirus, the fact that it was going to be over soon, that was going to end once the weather got warmer, and somewhat more serious warnings from some of the health officials,” Wallace added.
“The key is, I think, nobody can wave a magic wand and make it go away, but people have to have a sense that the administration is doing all that can in the public health sense, and that politics is not a factor, cause it shouldn’t be a factor either on the part of Republicans or Democrats,” Wallace added.
Wallace also criticized billionaire Tom Steyer’s statement calling the outbreak Trump’s “Katrina.”
Watch the clip above via Fox News.
