(CNSNews.com) - President Donald Trump said Thursday that his administration was prepared to deal with the pandemic of the coronavirus, but he wasn’t prepared to deal with the media.
The president complained that the press, and specifically NBC News, called him “racist” for banning foreign nationals traveling from China from entering the United States.
The president’s travel ban was put in place on Jan. 31, 2020 - one day after the first confirmed case of person-to-person transmission in the U.S., and one day after the World Health Organization instituted a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).
During a White House press briefing with the coronavirus task force, NBC News White House Correspondent Kristen Welker asked why the administration wasn’t more prepared to deal with the virus by providing more testing supplies.
“We were very prepared. The only thing we weren't prepared for was the media. The media has not treated it fairly. I will tell you how prepared I was, I called for a ban from people coming in from China long before anybody thought it was -- in fact, it was your network, I believe they called me a racist because I did that,” Trump said.
“It was many of the people in the room. They called me racist and other words because I did that, because I went so early. So when you say we weren't prepared, had I let these tens of thousands of people come in from China a day, we would have had something right now that would have been -- you wouldn't have even recognized it compared to where we are. How many people have passed away?” he said.
“How many people have died as of this moment? You could multiply that by a factor of many, many, many. So when you say that I wasn't prepared, I was the first want to do the ban. No other countries are following what I did, but the media doesn't acknowledge that. They know it's true. They know it's true, but they don't want to write about it,” the president added.
Welker asked when Americans can expect their lives to go back to normal and whether that will happen without a vaccine.
TRUMP: I hope very soon. We’ll see. This is uncharted territory, as you know. We think we have ideas. It doesn’t help to say what the ideas are. I would hope to say very soon. We have pulled together as a nation. People are for the most part doing what they’re supposed to be doing.
The social distancing is very interesting, a whole new term that’s become somewhat of a hot term, but the people are listening, and they are really doing a great job. This country is an amazing country. I think you are up to 141 different countries right now. So it's very uncharted territory. It could have been stopped, it could have been stopped pretty easily if we had known, if everybody had known about it a number of months before people started reading about it,” he said.
WELKER: Mr. President, you said you know--
TRUMP: Excuse me, excuse me. Before we started reading about it. It could have been stopped in its tracks. Unfortunately they didn't decide to make it public, but the whole world is suffering because of it.
WELKER: You did say a few days ago that you did have a sense this was a pandemic that it was coming. So why was the United States not prepared with more testing supplies?
TRUMP: We were very prepared. The only thing we weren't prepared for was the media. The media has not treated it fairly. I will tell you how prepared I was, I called for a ban from people coming in from China long before anybody thought it was -- in fact, it was your network, I believe they called me a racist because I did that. It was many of the people in the room. They called me racist and other words because I did that, because I went so early. So when you say we weren't prepared, had I let these tens of thousands of people come in from China a day, we would have had something right now that would have been -- you wouldn't have even recognized it compared to where we are. How many people have passed away? How many people have died as of this moment?
You could multiply that by a factor of many, many, many. So when you say that I wasn't prepared, I was the first one to do the ban. No other countries are following what I did, but the media doesn't acknowledge that. They know it's true. They know it's true, but they don't want to write about it. Yeah, go ahead.