Politicians and media on the Left have missed no opportunity to bash Donald Trump for his allegedly slow response to the coronavirus outbreak. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough took the bashing to an absurd level on his show this morning, claiming Wednesday that “everybody saw this coming in early January — everybody, that is, except Donald Trump.
Scarborough on Trump and the Coronavirus: Unlike him, “Everybody saw this coming in early January” pic.twitter.com/rB2ZZNgzb6
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) April 1, 2020
But as Matt Wolking, Deputy Director of Communications, Rapid Response for the president’s re-election campaign, was quick to point, not quite everybody saw the pandemic coming. One TV “journalist” in particular didn’t so much as mention the coronavirus until Feb. 7.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
That individual was Joe Scarborough.
The first mention of coronavirus on “Morning Joe,” by Scarborough’s co-host and wife Mika Brzezinski, came on Jan. 24, when Brzezinski read a Chinese news report. By that point, 26 deaths in Wuhan had been recorded. Even then, as Wolking notes, a guest of the show opined that “we don’t need to be overly concerned yet in the U.S.”
Brazen lie from @JoeNBC.@Morning_Joe did not mention the coronavirus until Jan 24, when a guest said "we don't need to be overly concerned yet in the U.S." and "Americans [should] take this as a wake up call for seasonal flu."
Joe himself didn't mention coronavirus until Feb 7 https://t.co/qECFnUBBJg
— Matt Wolking (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@MattWolking) April 1, 2020
But it wasn’t just the “Morning Joe” team whose attention was focused elsewhere during this period. As John McCormack, writing at Natonal Review reminds us:
… [T]he Senate impeachment trial was dominating the news cycle. The trial, which lasted from January 16 to February 5, had even blotted out coverage of the Democratic presidential primary in the days leading up to the Iowa caucuses.
