March 15, 2020

This is another edition of Trump surrogates having to reinterpret Trump's words so the American public understands what he means and not what he says when he says it.

Donald Trump gave an Oval Office address this past Wednesday that was put together by Stephen Miller and Jared Kushner at the last second. It was inaccurate, confusing, filled with misinformation and xenophobia that caused worldwide panic and the stock markets to crash in real time.

It also caused total chaos within his own administration.

On ABC's This Week, host Jonathan Karl questioned Steve Mnuchin about the Oval Office address and what caused the errors.

KARL: The market, and not just the market, also reacted fairly negatively to the Oval Office address. Can you help me understand what happened there?

I mean, the president said several things. He said that cargo would be banned coming in from Europe. He said -- he failed to mention that American citizens would not be subject to the ban. He said that insurance companies were going to cover all costs associated with treatment of the coronavirus.

These were all false statements. How, in a -- in an Oval Office address, do statements about the president's own proposals end up being wrong?

Yes, how is it possible that a president can so misinform the American public at such a critical time during a pandemic?

MNUCHIN: Well, let me just first comment on your reaction to the stock market. Because the stock market is going to go up; it's going to go down. We can't focus on, every day, the move.

As is relates to the Oval Office address, the president was very clear. He wanted to address a very important point, which was he made the move to shut down travel to that, shut down more cases coming in. He wanted to reassure the American public. I don't think, in an Oval Office address, you're going to address every single issue as you're discussing it. And I think, you know, we saw people --

Yes, you can address every single issue during an Oval Office press conference. That's the point of having it. It's not to spread misinformation and lies, but to speak truth to the situation and explain what steps a president is taking to combat the issue.

JONATHAN KARL, ABC NEWS: How does he get things wrong about his own proposal?

Exactly! How? because the narcissistic imbecile has to show his face on television every chance he gets no matter if he lies, (which is most of the time) if he's unprepared, (which is all of the time) or if he just crashes somebody else's presser just to hog the spotlight for himself.

MNUCHIN: I don't -- I don't think he got things wrong at all.

KARL: I mean cargo's not banned.

Mnuchin then explains it's not Trumps words that are the issue but your lying ears that don't understand what he is saying.

MNUCHIN: And we were very clear that people misinterpreted the comments on cargo and we immediately put out a statement to clarify that. So the president said this is similar to China and China cargo is not banned.

Trump was not clear. He is never very clear. And he's made this situation hundred times worse.

It's an odd thing that I don't hear Trump surrogates or their sycophants on Fox News and other Trump supporting outlets saying the coronavirus is a hoax any longer.

Can you help us out?

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