House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is too busy to watch President Trump’s press briefings about his handling of the novel coronavirus pandemic, the California Democrat said Thursday.
“I don’t watch them. I sometimes see inadvertently or just by accident some of the news reporting on it,” Mrs. Pelosi said of Mr. Trump’s coronavirus briefings, Politico reported.
“But I just don’t have time for that, I am a busy person. I have a day job, and it’s not to watch the president contradict himself on TV,” Mrs. Pelosi continued.
Mr. Trump has appeared behind the podium in the White House briefing room nearly every day since early March to brief reporters on his response to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, sometimes for more than two hours.
And while Mr. Trump has bragged that his coronavirus briefings have generated television ratings “through the roof,” some of his critics have described them as outright dangerous.
Progressive media reform group Free Press asked the Federal Communications Commission last month to rein in networks broadcasting Mr. Trump’s daily coronavirus briefings by reasoning that they have resulted in “substantial public harm,” evidenced in part by a recent nationwide shortage of an anti-malarial drug that the president has repeatedly touted before reporters as a potential treatment for COVID-19, the potentially deadly respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
“Of particular and urgent concern is the deadly disinformation broadcast on television stations across the country in the form of context-less coverage of President Donald Trump’s press conferences and other statements,” Free Press wrote in a petition asking the FCC to intervene.
The FCC on Monday denied the group’s request to intervene.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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