White House Press Corps Confronts Kayleigh McEnany on Trump Downplaying Coronavirus: ‘How is That Not an Abject Betrayal of the Public Trust?’

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany faced an avalanche of questions on Wednesday from the White House press reporters who pressed her on Bob Woodward’s revelations about President Donald Trump in his upcoming book.

Woodward’s book sparked an instant media firestorm as he released tapes of Trump privately acknowledging the seriousness of the coronavirus pandemic, while saying he intentionally downplayed the disease that has killed over 190,000 Americans.

“I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don’t want to create a panic,” Trump said.

CBS’ Paula Reid started the questioning Wednesday by asking “Did President Trump intentionally mislead the American people about the threat of Covid?” McEnany accused Reid of taking Trump’s words out of context as she defended Trump by saying “he doesn’t want to see chaos” in the pandemic’s early stages.

“This president does what leaders do: stay calm and resolute at a time when you face a challenge,” McEnany said. She continued to spar with Reid as she insisted “the president has never lied to the American public on Covid.”

ABC’s Jon Karl followed up by pressing McEnany on the “direct contradiction” between Trump acknowledging the seriousness of the virus before telling the public “it was quickly going to zero.” After that, NBC’s Geoff Bennett noted that Woodward reported instances of Dr. Anthony Fauci panning Trump’s “rudderless” leadership, saying “[Trump’s] attention span is like a minus number,” and “his sole purpose is to get reelected.”

“The bottom line here is that the president, by his own admission, in private, on the record, acknowledged the depth of this crisis, and yet told the American people something very different,” Bennett said. “How is that not an abject betrayal of the public trust?”

McEnany diverted to a number of positive quotes Fauci offered on Trump’s pandemic response. Bennett continued to grill her on Trump’s claim that Covid will eventually disappear, saying “it’s one thing as a public figure not to incite panic, it’s a very different thing to lie and mislead the American people about a crisis.”

Watch McEnany’s response above, via Fox News.