Peter Navarro Storms Off White House Driveway After Clash with Reporters, Bitter Tirade Against ‘Fake News’ Media
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro stormed off a driveway Q&A session with reporters on Friday following a tirade against the “fake news” media, which he compared to communist state news outlets in China.
Before the explosive conclusion, Navarro had already had a turbulent driveway, shushing two reporters for asking questions before he had finished speaking, and snapping at another journalist who asked about the recent controversy surrounding comments Navarro made about Canadians in Afghanistan.
The trade adviser then launched into a bitter tirade against the “fake news” media after being asked by an NBC reporter about four cases of the coronavirus which have been tied to the Republican National Convention, and about the limited social distancing and mask-wearing reported at the convention.
After asking the reporter which outlet she represented, Navarro responded, “My protocol every morning, just so I kind of figure out what the talking points are for everybody, is to watch[…] the first fifteen, twenty minutes of 6 different shows. Squawk Box, Maria for the financial markets. It’s Morning Joe, it’s New Day, Fox & Friends, and a couple others.”
“I thought it was really interesting that we got solid convention coverage on Fox & Friends, Squawk, on Maria Bartiromo’s show, but both CNN and MSNBC went with those talking points. So I’m not going to address those,” he continued, adding, “Here’s my problem with the fake news, okay?”
As the reporter then tried to talk over Navarro, he snapped at her to let him finish, before saying, “I’ve been around a long time, thank the Lord, okay? And what I’ve seen in Russia is Pravda, which is their propaganda organ which spreads lies of Russia. What I’ve seen in communist China is things like the Global Times and the People’s Daily, which spreads the lies… I never thought that this country would fracture into news outlets which would eventually be talking points for political parties.”
The reporter continued to talk over Navarro, however, prompting him to again snap, “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to hector me like this and then you’re going to try to get a headline out of this. I’m telling you that MSNBC and CNN and NBC and CBS and 60 Minutes, they need to go to the mountain top and decide whether they want to go back and cover the news like Walter Cronkite used to do, or whether they want to be talking points for the Democratic Party and Joe Biden.”
“So I’m going to leave it at that since I don’t like arguing with folks. I’m here to give you policy perspectives. Thank you,” he concluded, before storming off the driveway.
Watch above via C-SPAN.
