Trump Swipes at ‘Fake News’ in Back-and-Forth With CNN’s Acosta: ‘This Is Not Happy Talk’

President Donald Trump got combative with CNN’s Jim Acosta at Friday’s White House coronavirus task force briefing when the White House correspondent asked about hospital workers across the country saying they don’t have enough equipment.

“Mr. President, we hear from a lot of people who see these briefings as sort of happy talk briefings,” Acosta said, bringing up the criticism that officials are painting a “rosy picture.”

“You look at some of these questions, ‘Do we have enough masks? No.’ ‘Do we have enough tests? No.’ ‘Do we have enough PPE? No,'” he continued.

“I think the answer is yes. Who said no to that?” the president responded.

Acosta said “you watch the coverage” and the president remarked, “A lot of it’s fake news.”

“When the doctors and medical workers come on our air and say they don’t have enough tests…” Acosta started.

“Depending on your air, they always say that, ’cause otherwise you’re not gonna put them on,” the president shot back.

He also took issue with the “happy talk” characterization, telling Acosta, “This is not happy talk. Maybe it’s happy talk for you. It’s not happy talk for me. We’re talking about death. We’re talking about the greatest economy in the world closing off. One day I have to close it off. And we did the right thing, ’cause maybe it would have been 2 million people dying, instead of whatever that final number would be.”

“Thousands of people have died. There’s nothing happy about it, Jim. This is sad talk. These are the saddest — these are the saddest news conferences that I’ve ever had. I don’t like doing them,” he said.

You can watch above, via CNN.

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