CDC Chief Addresses Interview After Trump Remarks: I’m Accurately Quoted in Report ‘But the Headline Was Inappropriate’
Wednesday’s White House coronavirus task force briefing opened with President Donald Trump lashing out at the “fake news” for “misquoting” comments made by the head of the CDC in an interview Tuesday.
This is what CDC chief Robert Redfield told the Washington Post:
“There’s a possibility that the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through,” CDC Director Robert Redfield said in an interview with The Washington Post. “And when I’ve said this to others, they kind of put their head back, they don’t understand what I mean.”
“We’re going to have the flu epidemic and the coronavirus epidemic at the same time,” he said.
After some initial media coverage of that interview, Trump claimed that Redfield was being “misquoted.”
Trump blasted the Washington Post headline — “CDC director warns second wave of coronavirus is likely to be even more devastating” — and attacked the “fake news” before bringing Redfield up.
Redfield said, “I didn’t say this was going to be worse. I said this was going to be more difficult and potentially complicated because we’ll have flu and coronavirus circulating at the same time.”
After he clarified his remarks, ABC News’ Jon Karl read off the quote the Post ran and got Redfield to confirm that was an accurate quote of his.
“You are accurately quoted, correct?” Karl asked.
“I’m accurately quoted in the Washington Post as ‘difficult,’ but the headline was inappropriate,” Redfield said.
As Redfield sat back down, one reporter tried to ask Redfield about the fact that he himself shared the Washington Post report with the headline that supposedly misquoted him without complaint:
.@CDCgov will soon issue guidance for state and local governments on how they can ease #COVID19 mitigation efforts – moving from current guidance to a phased way to support a safe reopening of America. Read more in @washingtonpost: https://t.co/bWXgznaVcF
— Dr. Robert R. Redfield (@CDCDirector) April 22, 2020
As that reporter tried to ask Redfield, the president remarked, “You weren’t called.”
You can watch above, via Fox News.
