As fears spread of a possible coronavirus outbreak in the U.S, President Trump addressed the nation in a Wednesday evening news conference at the White House to discuss how his administration was handling the virus threat — saying that a vaccine is being developed “rapidly” and “coming along very well.”
However, Anthony Fauci, who heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said later at the press conference that a vaccine would not be applicable to the epidemic for a “year to a year and a half,” due to delays from testing, development, production and distribution.
The freewheeling and sometimes confusing press conference marked a rare appearance by the president in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, as he usually takes questions from reporters outside the White House while his Marine One helicopter prepares for takeoff.
“It’s really nice to talk to you without the helicopter,” a reporter shouted at one point, as others laughed and applauded. (“We’ll do more of ’em,” Trump said after some journalists asked him to “come back” to the briefing room in the future.)
Some of Trump’s targets remained the same, despite the new setting. In particular, the president excoriated both the Federal Reserve and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, calling her “incompetent” after she challenged his response to the virus and said he couldn’t be trusted on the matter.
“I think she’s not thinking about the country; instead of making a statement like that, where I’ve been beating her routinely at everything … she should be saying we should work together,” Trump said. – READ MORE
Listen to the insightful Thomas Paine Podcast Below --