Trump calls off coronavirus briefing saying it's 'not worth the time and effort'
The White House canceled April 27, Monday's coronavirus briefing as President Donald Trump continued his attacks against the press.
Reporters were issued guidance on Sunday, April 26, indicating that the briefing would take place despite Trump tweeting a day earlier that they were “not worth the time & effort" because "Lamestream Media asks nothing but hostile questions," Deadline reports.
That said, the president is still expected to give comments and take questions from the press at a meeting with industry executives scheduled for 4 PM ET.
Trump has been railing against the media for its coverage of his remarks during the briefing of April 23, which made waves across the internet after he appeared to suggest the injection of disinfectants to the human body as a possible treatment for the coronavirus.
While the president's comments drew ridicule from medical experts and his political opponents, manufacturers of disinfectants like Lysol and Clorox also issued warnings to not ingest the chemicals under any circumstances.
The last coronavirus briefing was held on April 24 and lasted only 21 minutes. The president, in contrast to previous briefings which lasted a couple of hours, chose not to take questions from reporters.
Trump took to Twitter later to slam "fake news" and spoke about canceling the briefings altogether.
"What is the purpose of having White House News Conferences when the Lamestream Media asks nothing but hostile questions, & then refuses to report the truth or facts accurately," he asked in the tweet. "They get record ratings, & the American people get nothing but Fake News. Not worth the time & effort!"
Trump continued his attacks against the media on April 27.
“There has never been, in the history of our country, a more vicious or hostile Lamestream Media than there is right now, even in the midst of a National Emergency, the Invisible Enemy!” he wrote.
This comes after the president's controversial remarks during April 23 coronavirus briefing drew major backlash.
"And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or, or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets on the lungs and it does a tremendous number, so it will be interesting to check that. So that you're going to have to use medical doctors. But it sounds, it sounds interesting to me. So we'll see,” the president said at the time. “But the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute, that's, that's pretty powerful.”
However, Trump clarified his remarks on Friday, April 24, after his comments drew severe backlash from the public, medical experts, as well as disinfectant manufacturers. He explained that he was only being "sarcastic" to hostile reporters at the briefing.
“I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you,” Trump said. “Disinfectant for doing this, maybe on the hands, would work. I was asking…when they use disinfectant it goes away in less than a minute.”
“I was asking a very sarcastic question to reporters in the room about disinfectants on the inside…that was done in a sarcastic way," he added.
But those who watched the briefing were skeptical of the president's clarification. Fox News anchor Bret Baier, after learning of Trump's apparent walk-back, remarked that it "didn't seem like it was coming off as sarcastic when he was talking and turning to Dr. Birx on the side."
The novel coronavirus, or SARS-CoV-2, has ravaged the United States like no other country, which has reported over 965,951 confirmed cases of the virus with a staggering 54,931 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.