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Trump aide Peter Navarro abruptly cut from CNN interview after heated argument with host Jake Tapper on Covid-19

The president's trade adviser was accused of not answering the question when the host asked him about Trump allegedly downplaying Covid-19 and misleading America

Peter Navarro, one of President Donald Trump’s closest allies in the administration, was abruptly cut from a CNN interview on September 13 following a debate over the president ‘downplaying’ the threat of the Covid-19 pandemic that has claimed nearly 200,000 lives in the country while affecting more than 6.5M.

Navarro, 71, who is the assistant to the president and director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, had a heated argument with 'State of the Union' program anchor Jake Tapper. Navarro accused Tapper of not allowing him to talk and interrupting continuously. Tapper asked Navarro why Trump had secretly acknowledged to veteran journalist Bob Woodward that the coronavirus was five times deadlier than flu and misled the people of America. "Why wasn't he honest?" the host asked the president’s advisor. 

"I am answering your question. You just don't like the answer," Navarro replied, adding: "The answer is in February all the way through the middle of March when the World Health Organization finally said there was a pandemic and China was hiding the information, finally, that's when we knew that there was a pandemic. And you know what, Jake, we were at that point prepared for the worst. In February we were moving mountains on PPE, therapeutics, testing and vaccines so that in the time that we needed those things we got those things."

All hell broke loose in the US after excerpts from Woodward’s upcoming book 'Rage' revealed that Trump knew about the threat of the virus and yet, downplayed it fearing that it would leave the people of the country panic-stricken. The president has blamed China all these months over the origin of the pandemic and the WHO accusing it of being biased towards the Asian power even as the situation in the US deteriorated. Trump told Woodward about the virus in one of the many recorded interviews. 

The issue led to the heated conversation between Navarro and Tapper on air after the president’s aide was grilled about the revelations. The interview was brought to an end as Tapper said: "He (Trump) knew it was deadlier than the flu and he was lying to the American public two weeks later."

Navarro accuses Tapper of cherry-picking

As Tapper was not satisfied with Navarro’s reply and kept on pressing him to answer his question, a frustrated Navarro said: "You just don’t want to listen, Jake. This is not fair, Jake. You're constantly interrupting me and you're not letting me talk." He then accused the show’s host of "cherry-picking". 

Tapper had another take on this. He denied that he was "cherry-picking" and counter-accused the president, saying he was not honest with the people of America and said Navarro was not answering the question. Navarro then replied: "You’re not honest with the American people. CNN is not honest with the American people."

"Okay. You want to go there? I said you're not answering the question. Thank you, Peter Navarro. We just played tape. You didn't answer the question," Tapper hit back, adding, "Okay. Peter Navarro, thank you so much. I appreciate your time today."

Earlier in the interview, Tapper told Navarro that he was "wrong" after the latter said: "He (Trump) was called a xenophobe and a racist by Joe Biden." Also when Navarro accused Tapper of not letting him talk, the latter replied saying: "You're talking about something else. It's a very basic question."

In February, Trump told Woodward that the virus is "deadly than even your strenuous flu". The president had been briefed on the virus in the Oval Office on January 28, as reported by Washington Post. In August, he told the Watergate reporter that nothing more could have been done.