https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/04/ny-times-scapegoats-trump-coronavirus-spread-joseph-klein/
The New York Times featured a front-page article this past weekend with the accusatory headline “He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus.” The so-called “newspaper of record” has chosen to scapegoat President Trump rather than thoroughly investigate the true malefactors responsible for the pandemic in the first place – Chinese government officials and the World Health Organization (WHO) leaders who did their bidding. In point of fact, many of the more than 101,000 deaths and at least 1.6 million known infections linked to the pandemic to date might have been prevented if Chinese officials, with WHO’s complicity, had not minimized the danger of the virus’s human to human transmission when it could have been effectively contained. China lied, with WHO’s help, to protect China’s public image rather than to protect human life. However, the Times’ weekend article characterized criticisms of the Chinese government’s response to the virus and lack of transparency as mere assertions by “Mr. Trump’s allies and some administration officials.”
The Times article grossly distorted the facts in order to paint President Trump in as bad a light as possible. For example, the article blamed President Trump for ignoring various government officials’ advice during January 2020 as to the virus’s potential danger to Americans’ health. “Throughout January, as Mr. Trump repeatedly played down the seriousness of the virus and focused on other issues, an array of figures inside his government — from top White House advisers to experts deep in the cabinet departments and intelligence agencies — identified the threat, sounded alarms and made clear the need for aggressive action,” according to the Times’ account. The article referred to the World Health Organization only once, mentioning that WHO had declared a world health emergency on January 30th. The article omitted WHO’s continued opposition to imposing travel restrictions, which President Trump did anyway the very next day. This decision alone to restrict travelers from China no doubt saved thousands of lives. The Times article also omitted WHO’s statements in mid-January, which had repeated without any qualifications China’s false claims that there was no clear evidence of the Covid-19 coronavirus’s human-to-human transmission. And, not to be forgotten, the impeachment hoax was in full swing during this time, which distracted the Trump administration from conducting the nation’s business.
