Navarro Grows Irate As He Accuses CNN Host Of ‘Cherry Picking’ Trump’s COVID Downplay

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro on Sunday found himself in a heated exchange with CNN’s Jake Tapper as the anchor took him to task on President Trump’s purposeful downplaying of the COVID-19 pandemic in its early stages, according to legendary journalist Bob Woodward’s forthcoming book.

When pressed on why Trump misled the public on COVID-19 — citing his remarks to Woodward in a Feb. 7 interview when the President privately expressed fear over COVID-19 after being warned by national security officials in late January that it would be the worst pandemic in a century, which contrasted his public downplaying of the threat in the following weeks — Navarro brought up Trump’s so-called travel ban on China imposed at the end of January and plans that the White House made in early February in preparation for COVID-19.

After calling Navarro out for dodging his question, Tapper grilled him on the stark contrast between Trump’s public comments versus his remarks those to Woodward on COVID-19.

“Why wasn’t the president straightforward with the American people?” Tapper asked.

Navarro insisted that Trump was “straightforward” before accusing Tapper of “cherry-picking.”

Tapper continued pressing Navarro to answer his question as he denied that he was “cherry-picking.”

After Navarro defended Trump’s comments again and claimed that “CNN is not honest with the American people,” Tapper abruptly ended the interview by talking over Navarro — who insisted that he “answered the question” — and reminding the American public of the country’s dire statistics on COVID-19.

“I would just like to remind the American people that are watching that the United States has less than 5% of the world’s population, and the United States has more than 20% of the world’s coronavirus deaths,” Tapper said. “That is a fact. It does not matter how many times he insults CNN.”

Watch Navarro’s remarks below:

Key Coronavirus Crisis Links

TPM’s COVID-19 hub.
Josh Marshall’s Twitter List of Trusted Experts (Epidemiologists, Researchers, Clinicians, Journalists, Government Agencies) providing reliable real-time information on the COVID-19 Crisis.
COVID-19 Tracking Project (updated data on testing and infections in the U.S.).
Johns Hopkins Global COVID-19 Survey (most up to date numbers globally and for countries around the world).
Worldometers.info (extensive source of information and data visualizations on COVID-19 Crisis — discussion of data here).