Sen. Ted Cruz accused journalists working in national media of “rooting” for the coronavirus pandemic, an outbreak that has killed more than 10,000 Americans, to get worse.
“You see the media, much of the mainstream media, trying to root for disaster. They are rooting for this pandemic to be worse and worse. And you saw, you know, the Washington Post’s self-proclaimed fact-checker was cheering about a line from the State of the Union where the president said we had the lowest unemployment in 50 years,” Cruz said Monday on Fox News. “And the Washington Post was saying, ‘Well gosh, that didn’t stand up well to the test of time.'”
Cruz ripped Glenn Kessler, the fact-checker in question: “Well, no, you moron. We had the lowest level of African American and Hispanic unemployment ever recorded until a global pandemic that originated in Wuhan, in China, came and ended up causing absolute chaos and catastrophe.”
The Republican senator attacked Kessler over the weekend on Twitter, accusing him of intentionally trying to make President Trump look bad.
“We should be coming together to root for America, to root for defeating this pandemic, and to root for jobs coming back,” Cruz said. “And I think too many partisan Democrats want to just use this catastrophe to attack Trump rather than come together and fight for our country.”
Cruz is not the first Republican to suggest major media outlets are trying to gin up fear among the public or place blame for the outbreak at the president’s feet.
“Some in our media can’t contain their glee & delight in reporting that the U.S. has more #CoronaVirus cases than #China,” Sen. Marco Rubio tweeted. “Beyond being grotesque, its bad journalism.”
The Florida lawmaker’s remarks were met with sharp criticism from journalists.
“Glee and delight?” asked Molly Knight of the New York Times. “Every journalist I know is terrified about being laid off right now. People are dying. You had the chance to remove Trump from office in January and looked the other way even though you know he’s corrupt and incompetent. Now look where we are.”
