Joy Behar calls Trump a 'disgusting racist' after he tells Asian American scribe to 'ask China' about Covid-19
'The View' co-host Joy Behar slammed President Donald Trump on Tuesday, May 12, calling him a "disgusting racist" while discussing his controversial exchange with CBS News White House correspondent Weijia Jiang at a press briefing.
During a White House press conference on Tuesday, Jiang, who is Asian American, asked the president why he continued claiming that the US was performing better than other countries in coronavirus testing. She asked: "Why does that matter? Why is this a global competition when, every day, Americans are still losing their lives?”
To which the president responded with: "They’re losing their lives everywhere in the world. And maybe that’s a question you should ask China. Don’t ask me, ask China that question, OK? When you ask them that question, you may get a very unusual answer."
Jiang, who was born in China and came to the US at the age of two, interjected, saying: "Sir, why are you saying that to me, specifically?" The president replied: "I am not saying it specifically to anybody. I am saying it to anybody who would ask a nasty question like that." The CBS reporter said: “That is not a nasty question." Trump then clashed with CNN's Kaitlan Collins, and ended the press briefing abruptly.
Behar took on the president during the show while talking to co-host Whoopi Goldberg, and said that "we all know that he's a racist."
"You know what, Whoopi, we all know now that he’s a racist. He’s a disgusting racist," Behar said of the president. "We knew it when he attacked Mexicans. We knew it when he defended Charlottesville people. And we know it when he goes after China and he goes after a Chinese-American girl. He is a racist. He throws red meat to his base on a regular basis, and anybody who still supports this guy needs to look in the mirror and ask themselves if they are racist also. That’s all I have to say about him. I’ve had enough of him.”
The guest co-host at the show Ana Navarro added to Behar's statement and appreciated the reporter for standing up to Trump, saying she and Collins, who backed Jiang at the press conference, were "doing us proud."
"Good for those two women for standing up. I think they’re doing us proud, and the question that he was being asked was not a challenging question," Navarro said. "It was a normal question. It was a rational question. It was a logical question. If you don’t have what it takes to answer even the simplest of questions, really, you’re better off going on your tirades and tantrums on Twitter."
Trump's comment on Tuesday was slammed by some commentators. Democratic congressman Ted Lieu, from California, criticized the president: "Asian Americans are Americans. Some of us served on active duty in the US military. Some are on the frontlines fighting this pandemic as paramedics and healthcare workers. Some are reporters like [Jiang]. Stop dividing our nation."
The president has clashed with Jiang before and has been widely denounced for attacking female reporters.