Trump Snaps at Yahoo’s Hunter Walker After Dr. Birx Corrects Him On Virus Testing Stat: ‘Nobody Knows Who the Hell You Are’
President Donald Trump got hostile with the media Tuesday by ripping Yahoo! News’ Hunter Walker for his questions on how America’s coronavirus testing capabilities compare to South Korea’s.
During Trump’s Oval Officer presser with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Walker asked Trump why it is that South Korea has done “5 times more tests” than the U.S. per capita.
“I don’t think that’s true,” Trump answered, to which, Walker claimed “that is true” while invoking the president’s latest tweet about how America has “far more, and better, Testing than any other country in the world.”
We are doing far more, and better, Testing than any other country in the world, and yet the media does nothing but complain. No matter how good a job is done, the same as with the Ventilators, they will never say we are doing a great job, they will only viciously gripe!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 28, 2020
Trump had Dr. Deborah Birx take over the question, and she answered by saying the U.S. directed tests toward coronavirus outbreak regions. “So if you look at every single state that had an outbreak, their testing is greater than anywhere in the world, in the forty-two per thousand range.”
Walker followed up by noting South Korea’s population density and asking “are we doing something wrong” since the U.S. infection rate is higher than theirs. Birx’s answer:
“Our epidemic looks much more like the European epidemic. Right now we are tracking very close to the countries in Europe, and we are testing at their rate of their concentrated epidemics. And where they are occurring in the metros. I think it really shows the susceptibility of our major cities, in the same way they were susceptible in Europe. So we’ve been very focused on that.”
Later in the presser, Birx got back to Walker and said “South Korea’s testing was 11 per 100,000, and we are at 17 per 100,000.” At that moment, Trump demanded “are you going to apologize, Yahoo?”
“That’s why you’re Yahoo and nobody knows who the hell you are,” Trump continued while Birx more softly asked Walker to check the numbers again.
“You ought to get your facts right. Your facts are wrong!” Trump ended before moving on.
Sure enough, Walker got on Twitter afterwards to apologize for misreading the misinformation he had about test numbers.
In the Oval Office, I asked about test rates and infection rates compared to South Korea. President Trump and Dr. Birx said I was wrong that they've done more tests per capita. Trump said I should apologize. They did not address multiple questions about our higher infection rate.
— Hunter Walker (@hunterw) April 28, 2020
Here is the latest data on testing that I was looking at. We passed South Korea, oer capita, some time this month. https://t.co/yRl4PB8EVz
— Hunter Walker (@hunterw) April 28, 2020
Watch above, via Fox News.
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