Trump storms out after China jibe at Asian woman
DONALD Trump stormed out of his coronavirus news conference after clashing with an Asian-American reporter, as US deaths surged past 80,000.
The tetchy American President initially claimed that the US was leading the world on testing.
But CBS White House correspondent Weijia Jiang challenged him, asking why it was a “global competition” for him when Americans were dying.
Trump responded: “Maybe that’s a question you should ask China? Don’t ask me, ask China that question, OK? When you ask them that question you might get a very unusual answer.”
Ms Jiang, stunned by the President’s response, demanded to know why he had asked her that question in particular.
But the President rebuffed her again, claiming that he was saying the same thing to anyone who would ask such a “nasty question like that”.
A rattled Mr Trump then refused to take questions from a CNN reporter and stormed off.
His latest outburst came as the US remained the epicentre of the outbreak with more than 1.3million infections and 80,000 dead. It also emerged yesterday that Mr Trump has ordered all White House staff to wear masks after two unnamed employees went down with Covid-19.White
House officials said they had instigated the move but Mr Trump later claimed he ordered it after his valet and an aide for Vice-President Mike Pence fell ill.
But, appearing without a mask in the White House’s Rose Garden for his press briefing, the President claimed he did not need to follow the directive because he kept “far away from everyone”.
Three members of the White
House virus task force have gone into self-isolation after possible exposure to the illness – including America’s top infectious diseases doc Anthony Fauci.
Meanwhile, in New York – hit hardest in the US – a Trump Death Clock has been erected by filmmaker Eugene Jarecki on the roof of a Times Square building.
It claims to count the number of avoidable Covid-19 deaths in the US and yesterday showed a figure of more than 40,000.