Fox News host Martha MacCallum fact-checked presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway during a live broadcast after Conway accused New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) of “lying to America” when he said he’s “been on top of” the coronavirus response from the start.
“I think it shows you the contrast in leadership when you have feckless leaders,” Conway said about de Blasio, “or when you have a president, who’s publicly facing every single day, giving people information engagement they need.”
It was here when MacCallum interjected.
“In terms of the things that you’re mentioning, you could probably match up, some of those early statements from him with also similarly optimistic statements from President Trump, although they’ve handled it very differently since then,” MacCallum said.
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Conway responded that “there’s no comparison” between the two politicians.
“In terms of get out and live your life and go ahead and do what you’re doing, back in early March?” MacCallum asked.
Conway did not deny that President Donald Trump had changed his tune on the coronavirus pandemic only a couple of weeks ago.
You can watch video of the broadcast below.
The president has been repeatedly accused of downplaying the pandemic, which has claimed 1,036 lives in the United States alone.
“We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China. It’s going to be just fine,” he told reporters on January 22.
On February 24, he said, “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA… Stock Market starting to look very good to me!” as the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 879 points for a 1,900 point loss over a 48-hour period.
“We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House for our attack on CoronaVirus,” he tweeted on March 8, as the number of cases began to creep up nationwide.
On March 13, just days after the World Health Organization recognized the world was now dealing with a pandemic, Trump declared a national emergency. According to White House insiders, he only began to take the pandemic seriously after watching Fox News personality Tucker Carlson deliver a monologue on his program.
Alan is a writer, editor, and news junkie based in New York.
