White House Says Donald Trump’s Comment About Slowing Coronavirus Testing Was A Jab At The Media

The White House Press Secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, held a press briefing on Monday where she told the press pool that President Donal Trump’s comments on Saturday about intentionally slowing down coronavirus testing was his way of pointing out the hypocrisy in the media.

As a video from Fox News shows, McEnany responded to questions about the comments, which have been met with intense backlash.

“The president was trying to expose what the media oftentimes does. They ignore the fact that the United States has more cases because we have more testing. We are leading the world in testing and he was pointing that out that it’s a fact that the media readily ignores,” she said.

“It was a comment that he made in jest, it was a comment that he made in passing, specifically with regard to the media coverage,” she said.

He was “joking” about the media when he made his comments, McEnany concluded.

Trump told the crowd at the 19,000-seat Bank of Oklahoma center in Tulsa that he had told his administration to slow down testing on coronavirus because it results in a higher number of cases.

While Trump himself hasn’t addressed the comment directly, people in his administration have said that the statement was tongue-in-cheek, in passing, or was meant in jest.

However, McEnany asserted that the president was making the comment as a way to point out that the press doesn’t report on the high number of tests that the United States is conducting.

Earlier in the day, Trump himself was asked about his comments on slowing down testing, but he avoided addressing the specific comments, Mediaite reported.

“If it did slow down, frankly, I think we’re way ahead of ourselves if you wanna know the truth,” Trump said. “We’ve done too good a job because every time we come up with 25 million tests, you’re gonna find more people,” he added.

McEnany pushed back on claims that Trump was unhappy with the crowd size of the rally, saying that he was in a good mood and energized after the event. She also claimed that the president received positive feedback from numerous people who said that it was one of his best speeches yet.

Those comments are in contrast to reports that Trump was upset and angry over the surprisingly small crowd size at the rally and the fact that news leaked of several staff members testing positive for coronavirus prior to the rally. As The Inquisitr previously reported, Trump apparently “fumed” at staffers and there is a possibility that some people might lose their jobs as a result.