Jim Acosta’s big take away from Trump’s assertive coronavirus approach: ‘Smacks of xenophobia’

(CNN video screenshot)

As the rest of the world has focused its attention on stopping the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus, CNN’s “journalists” have instead centered their attention on what they believe truly matters at a time like this: stopping the spread of racism and xenophobia.

After President Donald Trump delivered a speech late Wednesday announcing a travel ban on most of Europe, for instance, CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta dutifully rushed to his microphone to bemoan the president’s alleged xenophobia.

Listen (disable your adblocker if the video doesn’t appear):

“[A]t one point during this address, the president referred to the coronavirus as a quote “foreign virus,” he complained immediately afterward to network host Chris “Fredo” Cuomo.

“That I think was interesting because, as I was talking to sources earlier this evening, one of the points that the president wanted to make tonight — wanted to get across to Americans — is that this virus didn’t start here but that they’re dealing with it.”

After laying out what happened, he then pivoted to his xenophobia angle.

“Now, why the president would go as far as to describe it as a ‘foreign virus,’ that is something we’ll also be asking questions about,” he said.

“But it should be pointed out that Stephen Miller, who is an immigration hard-liner, who advises the president, is one of his top domestic policy advisers and speechwriters, was a driving force in writing this speech. And I think it is going to come across to a lot of Americans as smacking of xenophobia to use that kind of term in this speech.”

As a pursuer of racial justice, CNN has been at the forefront of warning Americans about the allegedly dire consequences of coronavirus-linked racism.

Folks like Acosta have been particularly concerned about the use of allegedly xenophobic language such as “Chinese coronavirus” and “Wuhan coronavirus.”

*cough*

The network was also among the first in the liberal mainstream press to complain about the president’s original travel ban on China and Iran.

In a report published last month, the network cited the words of Eric Carter, an associate professor of geography and global health at Macalaster College who studies the politics of public health, to warn about potential stigmatization and discrimination could that result because of the ban.

“Carter told CNN the past provides plenty of examples of travel restrictions stigmatizing countries and ethnicities,” the outlet reported. “The response to the novel coronavirus, including recent travel restrictions, has happened more quickly than in past epidemics — and from a public health standpoint, that could be a good thing, he says. But he notes there are also other questions to consider.”

“Historically a lot of these border security measures have used public health as a pretext for discrimination. It’s very easy to see how a public health rationale would be used to limit immigration for whatever reason,” Carter himself said. “And I’m not saying that that’s actually occurring, but it well could in this particular political climate, not just in the US, but internationally.”

The report was titled, “The US coronavirus travel ban could backfire.”

Oddly enough, the left-wing network’s prediction turned out to be completely wrong (as usual).

During a House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing Wednesday, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci testified that the president’s original travel ban to China and Iran had been helpful in stymieing the virus’s spread.

“I believe we would be in a worse position [without the bans],” he reportedly said when asked about the Trump administration’s response.

He added that the key going forward is to continue with proper “containment.”

“Whenever you look at the history of outbreaks, what you see now in an uncontained way and although we are containing it in some respects, we keep getting people coming into the country that are travel-related, we’ve seen that in many of the states that are now involved … ,” he said.

“We will see more cases and things will get worse than they are right now. How much worse they get will depend on our ability to do two things: To contain the influx of people who are infected coming from the outside and the ability to contain and mitigate within our own country. Bottom line, it’s going to get worse.”

The president later addressed this very concern in his speech Wednesday evening.

Listen:

But as Acosta clearly demonstrated in his complaints to Cuomo, it’s the racism that really matters.

Except not everybody agrees that it’s racist/xenophobic to call the Chinese Wuhan coronavirus a “foreign virus” …

Look:

CNN being “ridiculous?” Why, never that!

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