Trump Attacks Patriotism of Press for Questioning China Travel Ban: ‘They Cannot Love Our Country’

President Donald Trump directly attacked the patriotism of the press corps, saying anyone who dared to question the wisdom and effectiveness of his early commercial travel ban on China as part of the administration’s response to the coronavirus outbreak “cannot love our country.”

Speaking via phone with his longtime ally Fox News’ Sean Hannity, Trump again trumpeted his decision to ban travelers from China on January 31, despite downplaying the threat from the COVID-19 virus for weeks afterward. Trump repeatedly cites this travel ban as having saved thousands of lives, even though that claim is unsubstantiated and ignores the numerous loopholes that have allowed nearly half a million people to enter the U.S. from that country since January. As of Hannity’s broadcast, more then 400,000 Americans had been diagnosed with the coronavirus and nearly 13,000 had died.

“What drew your attention immediately towards that? I don’t think many people liked the idea at the time,” Hannity asked of the ban, before once again touting it as an unprecedented step. “And tell us why you moved that quickly because that has not been done before.”

“What you had to do was look at what was happening in China. We took a look at what was happening in the Wuhan province and it was terrible. I don’t know if they were shielding it or not but they didn’t do much in terms of shielding it because you saw the death,” Trump said. “I was excoriated by the fake news and by the press, by these people that are bad people, just bad people. They cannot love our country, I can tell you. Just excoriated and they were doing it for any reason other than it was me. It was somebody else I did it, I think you probably would’ve had a much different reaction.”

Watch the video above, via Fox News. 

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