CNN presenter Jake Tapper offered a rare defense from White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany after many members of the media, including her own network colleagues, released a misleading quote from the Thursday press.
McEnany reiterated President Trump’s firm stance of wanting children to return to school in the fall amid intense debate over how educators can prevent the spread of the coronavirus outbreak.
“Science shouldn’t get in the way of this, but as Dr. Scott Atlas said, I thought this was a good quote: ‘Of course, we can do it. Everyone else in the Western world, our peer nations are doing it. we are the outliers here, ” McEnany said, citing the former chief neurologist at Stanford Medical Center.
“The science is very clear on this. For example, you look at the JAMA pediatric study of 46 pediatric hospitals in North America that says the risk of critical illness from COVID is much lower for children than seasonal flu. The science is in our side here. We encourage localities and states to just follow science. Open our schools, “he continued.
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After playing a clip of that exchange on his show, Tapper corrected CNN’s chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who called the press secretary for having an “alternative time.”
“If I could say, Sanjay,” Tapper interjected. “I think she was just trying to say that science shouldn’t get in the way because science is on our side. I don’t know if all science is on her side, and certainly, this White House, its respect for science it has limits, let’s say it that way, but I think that’s what he meant. “
However, Dr. Gupta was not the only CNN journalist to misinterpret McEnany.
CNN chief anti-Trump reporter Jim Acosta tweeted about what McEnany said when he suggested it was anti-scientific.
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“The White House press secretary on Trump’s push to reopen schools: ‘Science must not stand in the way of this,'” the liberal journalist tweeted.
Acosta later added, “McEnany went on to say ‘science is on our side here.'”
However, his misleading tweet went on to get almost 40,000 retweets, while his follow-up tweet that provided much-needed context received less than 800.
Those who shared Acosta’s initial tweet included CNN national security analyst Sam Vinograd, CNN contributor Paul Begala, CNN analyst Max Boot, and CNN analyst Brian Karem.
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CBS White House correspondent Weijia Jiang, NBC News, The Guardian and The Washington Post reporter Josh Lederman similarly omitted McEnany’s real support for science.
Without directly addressing Acosta’s tweet, Tapper criticized the spread of the distorted quote and urged everyone to “read McEnany’s FULL comment.”
“I’m not taking a position on it, but be fair,” wrote the CNN presenter.
Earlier this week, “The Lead” presenter broke into New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic after the Democrat released a poster promoting his apparent accomplishments.
“New York Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo appears to be on a victory tour congratulating the state and himself for defeating the virus,” Tapper began before pointing to the poster full of “inside jokes” that Cuomo is selling.
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“There are no illustrations, however, of the more than 32,000 New Yorkers killed, the highest death toll in any state. There is no representation on that poster of criticism that Governor Cuomo ignored the warnings, nor a description of the study. He could have had thousands of lives saved if he and Mayor De Blasio had acted earlier, no painting of his order rescinded that nursing homes receive all infected patients, “continued the CNN presenter.
Tapper accused Cuomo of “revisionism” and “cackling,” who insisted that “he offends many New Yorkers.”
CNN has largely refrained from offering critical coverage of Governor Cuomo, brother of network presenter Chris, throughout the pandemic, largely ignoring the growing controversy in New York’s nursing homes that links one of its directives to the deaths of thousands of older people.
