On the 19th anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, “Fox and Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade defended President Donald Trump’s deliberate playing down of the COVID-19 pandemic by comparing Trump’s actions to that of then-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani during the terrorist attacks.
“There is so much you just said that is so applicable to today,” Kilmeade told Giuliani after the latter recounted the day he found out about the attacks. “Number one, you heard about an attack and you didn’t call a press conference to panic people. What, did you lie to them? I don’t think so.”
Trump has been widely accused of lying to the country following journalist Bob Woodward’s report that back in February, the President privately acknowledged that COVID-19 was “deadly stuff” even as he was publicly downplaying the pandemic at the time. Woodward also revealed that Trump had said in March that he “wanted to always play (the virus) down.”
Kilmeades’s comments echoed Trump’s excuse for publicly minimizing a pandemic he was privately worried about: That he was merely trying to prevent “panic.”
However, Trump’s defense rings hollow given the President’s penchant for spouting apocalyptic tirades accusing his political enemies of trying to “destroy” the nation.
Watch Kilmeade below:
Fox host Brian Kilmeade equates Trump’s excuse for purposefully downplaying COVID-19 for months to NY officials’ immediate response to 9/11. pic.twitter.com/0rFPbdJUyP
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) September 11, 2020
