CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta confronted Vice President Mike Pence over President Donald Trump’s insult of a Democratic politician and other, rambling comments during an appearance at the CDC on Friday: “Is the president addressing the situation with the seriousness it requires?”
Acosta’s question came during the latest White House briefing on the coronavirus outbreak, which continues to spread and has now claimed the lives of 15 Americans. The CNN correspondent alluded to several moments from earlier in the day during a Trump press conference at the CDC, where the president lashed out at Washington Governor Jay Inslee, calling him a “snake,” bragged about Fox News’ ratings of his town hall the night before, and then called the newly developed coronavirus test “perfect,” bizarrely comparing it to his infamous phone call with the Ukrainian president last July.
“When exactly will a person who feels like they may have coronavirus, can they go into their doctor’s office and get a test?” Acosta asked and then quickly added a follow up aimed at Trump’s behavior. “In addition to that, Mr. Vice president, just a short while ago, the president described Governor Inslee of Washington state, who you just met with, as a ‘snake.’ And he also described the coronavirus test, compared it to the phone call that he had with the leader of Ukraine.Is the president addressing the situation with the seriousness it requires?”
“Well, I promise you that President Trump has no higher priority than health and safety of the American people,” Pence replied, not addressing the president’s attack on the governor whose state currently sits at the epicenter of coronavirus fight. “And he’s assembled an extraordinary group of Americans and agencies. I’m a little more than a week into leading the White House coronavirus effort and I couldn’t be more proud and more impressed with the team that the president assembled. But I think your first question is a very important one, Jim. And I appreciate it.”
“The president’s exactly right,” Pence went on, praising Trump, “that for the state laboratories, for the communities that have been impacted, that have concerns about the coronavirus, we have been able to respond to requests for tests.”
In fact, there have been numerous, anecdotal reports of public health officials refusing or being unable to test people suspected of having the virus or medical workers who have been exposed to the virus because of a lack of test kits or bureaucratic snafus.
“Literally, you can hear that the tests that’s been made available since the first of this month has, literally, mounts in the hundreds of thousands and millions of tests. But for the American public to have access to the coronavirus tests, it’s the reason the president brought in this week all of the CEOs of the top commercial laboratories in the country. They’re the ones that we believed that could spin up a new test very rapidly. They have enormous logistics and manufacturing capabilities. And we said to them, ‘We want you to work together,’ because while all state labs can now conduct their own tests and as described and as Dr. Hahn described, we’ve distributed hundreds of thousands, in fact, over a million tests around the country.”
“And if I could just follow up, Mr. Vice President, if somebody is feeling ill this weekend and they go to the doctor on Monday, can the doctor request a coronavirus test?” Acosta asked. “Any American in the country, or are we not at that point. I want to make sure it’s crystal clear in terms of what the expectation are.”
“I think for any American that’s symptomatic, speaking to your doctor, if you have reason to believe that you have been exposed to the coronavirus, I have every confidence that your physician would contact state health officials and have access to the state lab,” Pence responded.
Watch the video above, via CNN.
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