MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” repeatedly called President Donald Trump’s Monday night press conference a “blizzard of lies” on Tuesday and criticized its execution.
“One final note from this crazy news conference from — as you pointed out, Joe — this blizzard of lies put out by the president: He seemed to sort of meltdown and lose his bearings upon questioning by two women reporters,” said Mika Brzezinski, who highlighted Trump’s “weird racist response to” CBS News’ Weijia Jiang.
Brzezinski went on to tell the audience that after further questioning from CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, Trump “literally left and retreated back into the White House. He seemed to crumble under it all.”
“He focuses on women reporters a lot. These women are great reporters. They’re strong. They’re fine. The question is, what’s going on with him? We’re talking about lives. There’s suffering and there’s death across the country and the president seems so consumed with how women apparently frame how he looks to the American public that he seems to sort of lose it in real time. It’s very disturbing. It’s freaking nuts,” she concluded, with interjections of support from co-host Joe Scarborough.
Trump abruptly walked out of his own coronavirus briefing on Monday, refusing to answer any more questions, after a tense exchange with Jiang and Collins.
During the Q&A portion of the press conference, Jiang asked Trump why testing in the U.S. was akin to a “global competition” for the president.
“You’ve said many times that the U.S. is doing far better than any other country when it comes to testing. Why does that matter? Why is this a global competition to you if every day Americans are still losing their lives and we’re still seeing more cases every day?” Jiang asked.
“Well, they’re losing their lives everywhere in the world. And maybe that’s a question you should ask China. Don’t ask me, ask China that question. When you ask them that question, you might get a very unusual question,” Trump said before pointing to a reporter behind Jiang.
Before another question was asked, Jiang — who is Asian American — asked Trump why he “specifically” told her to “ask China.”
“I’m not saying it specifically to anybody. I’m saying it to anybody that would ask a nasty question,” the president said.
“That’s not a nasty question. Why does it matter?” Jiang responded.
After that, he refused to take questions from Collins, whom he called upon, and then walked away.
Watch the “Morning Joe” segment above.