HOPE WINTER
Special to The Leader
It’s been yet another week of COVID-19 holding people hostage in their homes, and while Americans are beginning to go stir-crazy with their families, Trump continues to wave his finger guns.
Every night at six o’clock, while American families sit down for dinner, Trump addresses the country in his version of a fireside chat. While local news stations give Trump roughly 10 minutes to speak his mind before cutting him off, these speeches in the past week have caused a lot of backlash within our country. The president expects his briefings to be taken seriously, and proves his authority by victimizing anyone that gets in his way.
Trump’s tactics have been shown directly in his press briefing on April 13. If you missed this press release and want to see if for yourself, don’t go to the White House Briefing and Statements page; it’s the only one that’s missing. Thankfully in the age of multimedia, you can still find his Easter Monday speech on the U.S. Department of State’s YouTube channel.
Trump’s press briefing on Easter Monday started off like any other, scattering his favorite terms, “fake news” and “great,” every chance he could. However, things began to get heated after Dr. Anthony Fauci came to the podium.
Fauci stated that he wanted to clear up his answer to a hypothetical question earlier in the week, saying, “I can only tell you what I know and what my recommendations were, but clearly, as happens all the time, there were interpretations of that response to a hypothetical question, that I just thought it would be very nice for me to clarify this because I didn’t have a chance to clarify.”
He also cleared up his usage of the words “push back,” saying that he used the wrong choice of words.
The tension in the room grew once a reporter in the room asked, “Are you doing this voluntarily or did the president ask you to say this?”
Fauci responded quickly, “Everything I do is voluntarily, please don’t even imply that.”
This got the media heated. The tension of the room rose even more after Trump said, “Confirmed by the news doesn’t mean anything to me, because they don’t tell the truth.”
He went on to call The New York Times a fake newspaper.
“Someday hopefully in five years, when I am not here, those papers are all going out of business because nobody’s gonna wanna read them. But now they like them because they write about me.”
If that didn’t rally the media’s emotions enough, Trump decided to lower the lights and proceeded to show news video clips without context, taking time out of his coronavirus briefing to boost his ego.
“Most importantly, we will get back to the reason we are here, which is the success we’re having.”
That was all the local media allowed to air, before quickly cutting back to their program.
This press release especially began to rally mistrust in Trump’s administration and the media during this worldwide crisis.
CNN inserted a chyron on top of the conference, saying, “Angry Trump Turns Briefing Into Propaganda Session.” Propaganda has been a term used to describe his press release ever since by multiple outlets including CNN, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair and more.
Responses about the video quickly flooded Twitter.
“I stood behind that podium for two years and never engaged in anything close to what we saw today. This is North Korea-type propaganda. We have a president who cares only about himself and not about Americans,” said Joe Lockhart, a former press secretary for the Clinton administration.
At what point are networks supposed to air press briefings from our president, and are they held responsible for airing what the president shows, even if it is controversial?
Seth Meyers told Vanity Fair, “You know what else turned that into a propaganda session? Pointing your camera at it. Before you showed up it was just, ‘Crazy Lawn Man Does His Thing.’ You can’t air a propaganda session and then criticize it. It’s like if MTV had aired ‘Jersey Shore’ with the disclaimer, ‘change the channel, this show sucks.’”
The press briefings after Monday’s controversial layout took a step back from the propaganda, but continued to play the blame game.
On April 14, Trump decided to create a payroll system for airlines, but decided to halt the United State’s funding toward the World Health Organization.
“American taxpayers provide between $400 million and $500 million per year to the WHO,” Trump said, claiming that we pay even more than China. “As the organization’s leading sponsor, the United States has a duty to insist on full accountability.”
Looking into how early WHO started notifying on their website, I found an article on March 3, saying that the biggest risk is the lack of equipment the world has.
A quote from WHO’s director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in the article, “Industry and governments must act quickly to boost supply, ease export restrictions and put measures in place to stop speculation and hoarding. We can’t stop COVID-19 without protecting health workers first.”
This article was posted on March 3, and Trump’s administration waited to announce concern about equipment until March 13, when Trump declared a national emergency.
Trump has also brought controversy with governors, saying, “The president of the United States calls the shots.” Trump said, “They can’t do anything without the approval of the president of the United States.”
However, according to the 10th Amendment, the president of the United States does not have that power over the states. This brought even more backlash, with people calling Trump out on having authoritarian views.
All of these changes and distractions can be frustrating and confusing during a time of a pandemic.
The American people are sick of turning on their news and seeing bickering — at least I know I am.
All we want to know is how to stay safe.
How are we supposed to stay united when people are worrying about blaming others for something that has affected the worldwide population?
“In the midst of this, there is no time for politics. How does the situation get worse, and get worse quickly? If you politicize all that emotion. We cannot go there,” Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, said when talking about political agendas.
Yes, it’s frustrating not knowing the real facts about the past, and why this pandemic is spreading so fast.
The amount of uncertainty that is hovering over our citizens’ minds is dreadful, but it will accelerate if we’re focusing on the past and not what is coming around the corner. At this moment, the ways to protect our families and loved ones should be what are prioritized.
Please, Mr. President, stop the blame game.