The Washington PostDemocracy Dies in Darkness

Opinion Trump and Rubio’s latest attacks on the media are grotesque

Columnist|
March 30, 2020 at 2:23 p.m. EDT
President Trump answers a question from PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor during a coronavirus task force briefing in the White House Rose Garden on Sunday. (Patrick Semansky/AP)

The coronavirus really is an “enemy of the people” — of all the people, whether Republicans or Democrats, supporters or opponents of President Trump, politicians or journalists. Yet instead of uniting the entire country to combat this terrible pandemic, Trump and his followers seem intent on rehashing their grievances against the “fake news media.”

In truth, most of the media have done a tremendous job of reporting in a difficult, life-threatening environment. Even White House reporters are running a risk by showing up for work rather than staying home with their families like the rest of us. That’s to say nothing of journalists who have run an even greater risk of infection by reporting on the virus from dangerous hot spots such as Wuhan, China; Lombardy, Italy; and Queens, N.Y.

Full coverage of the coronavirus pandemic

The only journalists who have failed during this crisis have been Trump’s own supporters in the right-wing media industrial complex. Many of them joined him in playing down the severity of the virus and then called for restarting the economy prematurely — a plan that Trump embraced last week before wisely rejecting it on Sunday. The disinformation from Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and their ilk is likely to get people killed. If Trump would tell his media followers to cease and desist, that would be a real public service. But, of course, that’s not what the president is doing.

From accusing hospitals of wasting masks to calling a reporter "threatening," here are five contentious moments from President Trump's March 29 update. (Video: The Washington Post)

Even as people are dying (more than 2,400 Americans had died of the novel coronavirus by Sunday night), Trump is nursing imaginary grievances against the mainstream press. He tweeted on Sunday that “the Lamestream Media is going CRAZY” because “the ‘Ratings’ of my News Conferences etc. are so high, ‘Bachelor finale, Monday Night Football type numbers’ according to the @nytimes.” He then made up a quote that he attributed to some unnamed “lunatic”: “Trump is reaching too many people, we must stop him.”

The reality-TV star turned president is telling the media: Forget the coronavirus. Focus on what really matters — my TV ratings! His level of self-absorption is literally cartoonish. The president is best captured in a scathing, dead-on drawing by the Canadian cartoonist Michael de Adder, which has Trump saying to a patient on a ventilator: “You think you’re having a bad day. You should see the way I’m being treated by the media.”

Trump does not confine his grievances to Twitter. On Sunday, he once again raged against a perfectly proper question from a White House reporter. PBS correspondent Yamiche Alcindor asked about Trump’s bewildering comment last week that governors are requesting more ventilators than they need: “I don’t believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators.” Trump cut her off to deny saying what he had said and to label her question as “threatening” and not “nice” — even though she had merely quoted his own words back to him.

This is a transparent attempt by Trump to deflect responsibility for his many failures by redirecting the ire of his supporters against the “fake news media.” Naturally, his reprehensible strategy is being emulated by all the mini-Trumps who now populate the GOP.

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) of Florida may be the nation’s worst governor, because he refuses to shut down the state even as its case numbers across the state are exploding. (On Monday, he belatedly issued a stay-at-home order, only for southeast Florida.) To avoid tough questioning about his benighted policy, DeSantis barred a Miami Herald/Tampa Bay Times reporter from his news conference on Saturday.

Perhaps the most appalling attack on the press was launched by DeSantis’s fellow Florida Republican, Sen. Marco Rubio. He tweeted on Sunday: “Some in our media can’t contain their glee & delight in reporting that the U.S. has more #CoronaVirus cases than #China. Beyond being grotesque, its bad journalism.”

What Rubio is saying is horrendously, hideously offensive. It is, to borrow his own word, grotesque. There is no one — no one — who is happy that Trump has bungled the coronavirus response so badly that the United States now has more cases than any other country in the world. Rubio could not offer a single example of “glee & delight,” because there isn’t one.

The Opinions section is looking for stories of how the coronavirus has affected people of all walks of life. Write to us.

I know this will come as a surprise to the senator, but journalists are people, too. We have families and friends, jobs and retirement accounts we worry about. Many of us know someone who has gotten ill. Some journalists, such as my Post colleague David Von Drehle, have contracted the disease themselves. Some — such as CBS News producer Maria Mercader and NBC News technician Larry Edgeworth — have died from it. To suggest that journalists are celebrating this tragedy is the ugliest of cheap shots. Rubio is fast becoming as offensive and unfeeling as the president he once denounced as a “con man.”

I would humbly suggest to the Republican Party in the time of the coronavirus: Focus on the real enemy. It’s not the media.

Read more:

Jennifer Rubin: Trump’s narcissism has never been more dangerous

Greg Sargent: The cult of Trump is a threat to untold numbers of American lives

Jennifer Rubin: Imagine if Trump were actually running things

Jennifer Rubin: When the president is the problem

James Downie: Trump’s hopeless helpers

Coronavirus: What you need to know

Covid isolation guidelines: Americans who test positive for the coronavirus no longer need to routinely stay home from work and school for five days under new guidance planned by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The change has raised concerns among medically vulnerable people.

New coronavirus variant: The United States is in the throes of another covid-19 uptick and coronavirus samples detected in wastewater suggests infections could be as rampant as they were last winter. JN.1, the new dominant variant, appears to be especially adept at infecting those who have been vaccinated or previously infected. Here’s how this covid surge compares with earlier spikes.

Latest coronavirus booster: The CDC recommends that anyone 6 months or older gets an updated coronavirus shot, but the vaccine rollout has seen some hiccups, especially for children. Here’s what you need to know about the latest coronavirus vaccines, including when you should get it.