CNN’s Jake Tapper closed out State of the Union by leveling President Donald Trump and declaring him “someone who can be relied upon for factual information” about the coronavirus.
On Sunday, Tapper ripped into Trump and multiple administration officials for their “never-ending cascade of lies” on the seriousness of the pandemic and the government’s efforts to address it. The CNN host made his point by juxtaposing Trump saying “The [coronavirus] tests are beautiful. Anybody that needs a test, gets a test” to Vice President Mike Pence saying “We don’t have enough tests today to meet what we anticipate will be the demand going forward.”
“At a time like this, when the public needs accurate information so it can avoid panic and pursue caution, being able to believe what our leaders tell us is vital,” Tapper mused. “But President Trump keeps diminishing the severity of the situation.”
From there, Tapper looked at how Trump spoke at the CDC and said he didn’t want thousands of people to disembark a cruise ship in California and be placed into quarantine because he wants to keep the U.S. coronavirus case numbers low.
“He likes the numbers where they are, even if that were to mean artificially keeping them lower by keeping sick Americans off the coast. The president’s number one job is to protect American lives. Not to keep the numbers where
they are. At the CDC Friday, the president spoke of having a ‘natural ability’ for science and medicine, except, doctors swear by the Hippocratic Oath: first do no harm. All of these lies are doing harm.”
Watch above, via CNN.