Three polls released late this week show a majority of Americans approve of President Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 Chinese coronavirus crisis. The approval numbers have risen as as Trump has led daily televised press briefings on the government’s response to the virus. By coincidence a call has gone out by liberals, led by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, for a media blackout of the briefings because they say Trump will get people killed because of his rhetoric.
The ABC News/ Ipsos poll has Trump up at 55 percent, the Harris poll at 53 percent and Survey USA at 51 percent.
ABC News graphic via Twitter.
UPDATE: A Morning Consult poll released Friday afternoon shows Trump with a 53 percent approval of his hadnling of the coronavirus.
The calls for the blackout also come as reporters are making spectacles of themselves with gotcha questions such as whether it is racist to use the term ‘Chinese virus’ when the virus originated in the Chinese city of Wuhan, or asking Trump if he his giving people false hope.
Maddow on her MSNBC show Friday night, “Maddow: If Trump is going to keep lying like he has been every day on stuff this important, we should, all of us, stop broadcasting it. Honestly, it’s going to cost lives.”
Maddow: If Trump is going to keep lying like he has been every day on stuff this important, we should, all of us, stop broadcasting it. Honestly, it’s going to cost lives. pic.twitter.com/tMvyrE3YTK
— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) March 21, 2020
Jay Rosen, journalism professor at NYU wrote at his NYU blog PressThink an imaginary statement from a broadcast executive on not covering Trump’s briefings:
Even this far into his term, it is still a bit of a shock to be reminded that the single most potent force for misinforming the American public is the current president of the United States. For three years this has been a massive — and unsolved — problem for the country and its political leadership.
But now it is life and death. On everything that involves the coronavirus Donald Trump’s public statements have been unreliable. And that is why today we announce that we are shifting our coverage of the President to an emergency setting.