The acting Chief of Staff Nick Mulvaney said the news media is using the coronavirus crisis to “bring down the president.” He said that President Donald Trump had taken steps to curtail the virus and that news coverage was exaggerating its seriousness. (The New York Times, February 28, 2020, by Anni Karni)
The Trump administration claim they took unprecedented steps to contain the virus while the director of the Center for Disease Control Nancy Messonnier drew anger from Trump with her comment that the epidemic in the U.S. was “not a question of if, but rather a question of when.” (Politico, February 28, 2020, by Myah Ward)