
MSNBC host Chris Hayes explained to his audience that President Donald Trump had become such a “threat to public health” that his show was refusing to air video of his comments about coronavirus.
Hayes said on Tuesday’s edition of his show that Trump had said things that were “flat out wrong” and “lies” about the virus ravaging nations across the globe.
“Today President Trump participated in a Fox News town hall, where he announced he wants to open the country up again by Easter. Why Easter? Because it would be beautiful to see packed churches for the holidays. Easter is uh, two and a half weeks away,” said Hayes.
“Other countries that have battled this epidemic have had lockdowns for sixty days. The place with the worst outbreak in the world, Wuhan, China, where all this started, they are still under lockdown, maybe they’ll be out in time for Easter,” he added.
“And when the president was pushed on that Easter goal, he made up a preposterous claim that doctors wanted to keep everyone locked down for two years, and there’s no way he’s having that, although literally no one is suggesting we stay locked down for two years,” Hayes continued.
“The president also claimed the flu pandemic in 1918, the deadliest pandemic in recent modern history, that it had a 50% mortality rate, killed one out of every two people. Now the data we have of the flu pandemic of 1918 is a bit spotty, but there’s just no way that’s true,” he claimed.
“In the midst of a global pandemic, at this moment of crisis, the president, as he has been doing daily, as he has done since the first case arrived on our shores, went out today and said things that are flat out wrong, that are lies, and more than that, that are dangerous,” Hayes said.
“And that’s why we did not play you any sound of what he said today,” Hayes concluded, “because frankly, the President has become a kind of, well he’s a genuine threat to public health, his rhetoric at this point, and the things he says.”
In a media briefing also on Tuesday, the president announced that they would be seeking $6 trillion in a relief package to combat the economic effects of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States.