CNN’s David Gergen Calls Trump Coronavirus Pressers a ‘Form of Propaganda’: He ‘Shouldn’t Be Briefing Everyday’
In an appearance on CNN’s The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, former presidential adviser and CNN commentator David Gergen offered his advice for President Donald Trump as he seeks to lead the country through the coronavirus pandemic, saying he thought Trump should stop using briefings as personal propaganda and allow his experts to take more of a center stage.
Blitzer welcomed Gergen on the show by noting the comparisons of the current crisis to past American crises, like Pearl Harbor or September 11th, and how the nation rallied together to meet those challenges.
“Do you think this could be a moment like that as well?” Blitzer asked Gergen.
“It could,” Gergen replied, “Donald Trump’s going to have to lift his game to do that, but he is Commander-in-Chief, and this is a moment when he needs to go before the public,” mentioning President Franklin D. Roosevelt‘s “Day of Infamy” speech after Pearl Harbor.
The president’s tone would be critically important, explained Gergen.
“Now, the next few days, as we face this ‘Pearl Harbor,’ I think the tone of these press briefings really ought to change,” he said. “They ought to be more serious. They ought to be less self-congratulatory. They ought to be straight talk.”
“We need to be rallied by a speech that’s both realistic but offers some hope and is not self-congratulatory.”
Gergen also said that Trump should avoid mixed messages, noting how several times he had undercut the advice of his own health experts, such as when Dr. Anthony Fauci and others in the Trump administration were saying everyone should start wearing masks when they went out in public and Trump said he was not going to wear one.
These mixed messages, said Gergen, were “confusing” and giving people who were reluctant to continue social distancing an excuse to ignore the recommendations.
Gergen concluded by saying that he would advise Trump to stop leading the briefings every day, and to instead offer brief introductory remarks at the beginning to “frame the issue,” and then turn the podium over to his experts.
“These press briefings have, frankly, become a form of propaganda. And they’re increasingly seen as that. And I think they’re beginning to really hurt the president. I would think that his advisers ought to say, this really isn’t working. You need to get him in, get him out of there in the first three to five minutes, then let the experts go at it. You can always bring him on when there’s something new and big, about the he shouldn’t be briefing every day.”
Watch the video above, via CNN.
