Coronavirus: Trump hurls insults as 21 cases confirmed on cruise ship

• President attacks CNN and Democrats at CDC event
• Universities cancel classes in Washington state

Sam Levin and agencies
@SamTLevin Email
Sat 7 Mar 2020 03.00 GMT
First published on Fri 6 Mar 2020 16.44 GMT

Donald Trump used a freewheeling press conference on Friday, intended to provide updates on the coronavirus, as an opportunity to attack Democrats, praise his own intelligence, lash out at CNN and spread false and misleading information about the status of the outbreak, as a slew of new cases were confirmed aboard a cruise ship off the California coast.

Speaking at the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) main campus in Atlanta, Georgia, while wearing his red “Keep America Great” re-election campaign hat, the president went on a rant criticizing Washington state’s governor, Jay Inslee, as a “snake” and saying he disagreed with his vice-president’s complimentary remarks toward the Democrat. Inslee, who ran for president last year, is overseeing the response to the most serious outbreak in the US.

In a moment that some commentators have called one of the most “disturbing” and “frightening” remarks of Trump’s response to the public health crisis, the president also said he would prefer that cruise ship passengers exposed to the virus be left aboard so that they don’t add to the number of total infections in the US.

“I like the numbers being where they are,” said Trump, who appeared to be explicitly acknowledging his political concerns about the outbreak: “I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault.”

The president further implied that the coronavirus test was available to anyone who needed it, even though his own administration has acknowledged that there is currently a shortage among US health care providers.

-snip-