Coronavirus: White House denies ‘kung flu’ shows Trump racism

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Monday defended President Donald Trump‘s use of the racist term ‘Kung flu’ to describe the coronavirus, arguing he was merely point to its origins in China.

The president has referred to COVID-19 as the ‘China virus’ and the ‘Wuhan virus,’ to describe the disease first detected in China’s Wuhan providence. But, at his campaign rally in Tulsa on Saturday, he added a new term to the mix: ‘kung flu.’ 

‘The president does not believe that it is offensive to note that this virus came from China,’ McEnany said when asked about his use of the term.

McEnany was asked several times during her 20 minute briefing about Trump’s use of the term and whether he considers it a racist phrase. 

‘The president doesn’t,’ she said. ‘What the president does do is point to the fact that the origin of the virus is China.’

She went on to say the president was pushing back against theories China has offered about the origins of COVID-19, including a conspiracy theory that American military members brought it when they were in the Wuhan area for the World Military Games in October 2019.

Scientists believe the virus made the jump from animals to humans at Wuhan’s wet markets, which sell a variety of exotic animal meat. 

‘It’s a fair thing to point out as China tries to ridiculously rewrite history,’ McEnany said. ‘To ridiculously blame the coronavirus on American soldiers. This is what China is trying to do. President Trump is trying to say no, China, I will label this virus for its place of origin.’

The president, speaking in Tulsa, Oklahoma at his first rally in three months on Saturday night, said of the virus: ‘It has more names than any disease in history. I can name kung flu. I can name 19 different versions of names.’

Trump’s own adviser, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, in March called the term ‘wrong and highly offensive’ when CBS reporter Weijia Jiang, who is Chinese American, said in March an administration official used the term when speaking to her.

Jiang was at Monday’s briefing and asked McEnany what message Trump’s use of the term sent to Asian Americans, who find ‘kung flu’ deeply offensive. 

‘The president has said it is important that we protect our Asian community in the U.S. and around the world. They are amazing people and the spreading of the virus is not their fault in any way, shape or form. They are working closely with us to get rid of it and we will prevail together and it is very important. If not a discussions about Asian-Americans, who the president values and prizes as citizens of this great country. It’s an indictment of China for letting this virus get here,’ McEnany said.

She also ignored a question on whether Trump and Conway disagree on the term.

But she did attack the media, pointing out several news organizations have used the terms ‘Chinese coronavirus’ and ‘Wuhan coronavirus.’ 

‘I would also point out that the media blames President Trump for using the term China virus and Wuhan virus when they themselves are viewed these very terms,’ she said.

‘The media is trying to play games with the terminology of this virus where the focus should be on the fact that China left us out of our country,’ she added. ‘While the media wants to focus on nomenclature, the president is going to focus on action.’

President Trump was criticized for calling COVID-19 the ‘China virus’ after there was an increase in attacks on Asian Americans.  

He told reporters earlier this year that he used the description because the virus originated in the Wuhan province of China.

‘It’s not racist at all. It comes from China, that’s why. It comes from China. I want to be accurate,’ he said.  

The media has not used the term ‘kung flu’ and McEnany dismissed questions about the racist origins of the phrase, saying of Trump: ‘He is linking it to its place of origin.’

And she was clear President Trump does not regret using the term.

‘The president never regrets putting the onus back on China, pointing out that China is responsible for this and in the process standing up for U.S. troops who are being blamed by China and a campaign of misinformation,’ she said. 

Trump’s offensive term for the virus wasn’t his only comment from Saturday’s rally that his staff had to defend. 

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro said Sunday that President Trump was being ‘tongue-in-cheek’ when he claimed during his rally that he told his administration to cut down on coronavirus testing so U.S. numbers would artificial be decreased.

During an interview with CNN’s State of the Union, host Jake Tapper asked Navarro about the moment the president said during his rally Saturday night: ‘I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please.’

‘C’mon now, Jake, that was tongue-in-cheek,’ the Navarro repeatedly told Tapper.

‘I don’t know that it was tongue-in-cheek at all,’ the host pushed back. ‘He has said similar things for months.’

Navarro, who claimed talking about coronavirus is ‘not in my lane,’ insisted that Tapper instead ask him about ‘serious issues.’

‘I think testing is a very serious issue. I’m not the one making jokes about it,’ Tapper asserted.

‘Come on. It was a light moment,’ Navarro shot back. 

Trump told a cheering crowd in Tulsa, Oklahoma during his comeback rally Saturday night that he directed his administration to slow down testing for coronavirus.

He claimed the success in testing capabilities and availability is a ‘double-edged sword’ that has led to more cases being discovered than any other country is reporting.

During the rally, Trump said the U.S. has now tested 25 million people – far more than other countries.

The ‘bad part,’ Trump said, is that widespread testing leads to logging more cases of the virus.

‘When you do testing to that extent, you’re gonna find more people you’re gonna find more cases. So I said to my people slow the testing down, please,’ the president said.

A White House official later told reporters after the rally that Trump was just joking and made the comment in jest.

‘He was obviously kidding. We are leading the world in testing and have conducted 25 million + in testing,’ the official said.

When asked about the moment, Navarro dismissed that the president was being serious.

Tapper countered: ‘I’m not sure that a deadly pandemic, where almost 120,000 Americans died, is really a good subject for a ‘light moment.”

But Navarro said the president was taking those deaths ‘absolutely seriously.’

McEnany also said Trump took the number of coronavirus deaths seriously, saying his comment on testing was directed to the media.

‘The president was trying to expose what the media, oftentimes does is they ignore the fact that the United States has more cases because we have more testing. We are leading the world in testing, and he was pointing that out that it’s a fact that the media readily ignores,’ she said at her briefing on Monday.

‘It was a comment that he made in jest. It’s comment that he made in passing,’ she added.

Trump’s rally, which was supposed to reset his campaign as he trailed Joe Biden in the polls and saw his approval ratings dip for his handling of the coroanvirus and race relations, instead became a point of controversy even before it began.

Originally scheduled for Friday, which was Juneteenth, officials pushed it back a day after the date conflict was pointed out along with Tulsa’s setting as one of the worst race riots in history, where more than 300 people died.  

Plus a total of eight member of the advance team tested positive for COVID-19.

 ‘After another round of testing for campaign staff in Tulsa, two additional members of the advance team tested positive for the coronavirus,’ Communications Director Tim Murtaugh told DailyMail.com. ‘These staff members attended the rally but were wearing masks during the entire event.’  

Upon receiving the news of more positive tests ‘the campaign immediately activated established quarantine and contact tracing protocols,’ Murtaugh added. 

Additionally, the rally was so sparsely attended that plans for President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence to address an overflow crowd at an outdoor stage were scrapped on Saturday afternoon when it was apparent such crowds were not going to appear.

Inside the 19,000-seat BOK Center, only 6,2000 people showed up, according to Tulsa officials, leaving rows of empty blue seats to greet the president when he took the stage. 

Trump’s campaign has privately admitted that as many as 300,000 of the people who signed up for Saturday’s rally were online tricksters as the president’s fury mounted over the lack of attendance.

Trump and his campaign manager Brad Parscale bragged that one million tickets had been requested.  

After going through the signups, the campaign determined that around 300,000 were fake, Politico reported, and, after analyzing the data further, determined that between 200,000 and 300,000 people lived in driving distance.

The worst case scenario was that 60,000 people would show up. 

Their estimates were off by thousands and a furious Trump yelled at his staff backstage at the BOK Center before he went out to address the supporters who did show up.

Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican Party, argued on Monday that the 6,200 attendance number was wrong and that the number of people in the arena was at least doubled that.

‘I talked of the campaign this morning, and they said it was double that at least,’ she told Fox News. ‘I do think there was a little chaos in Tulsa and they disperse the crowds early that people in the front row who were camping out were forced to leave early.’ 

She attributed the low attendance to Sunday being Father’s Day. 

‘You had it being on Father’s Day weekend, people who were scared about violence and coronavirus but people showed up and having 11 million people watch online shows that enthusiasm exists,’ she said. 

And White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Trump wasn’t angry at the crowd size.

‘The president was not angry at all, the president was quite energized, I was with him after the rally, it was a huge success, his speech got rave reviews. He was in great spirits on Marine One,’ she told Fox News Monday morning.

‘He was in very good spirits,’ she added. 

But, on Saturday night, Looking at row after row of empty blue seats, Trump was stunned and vented his frustration to his aides, The New York Times reported, although Parscale was not present for the tongue-lashing.

There are no further campaign rallies scheduled. President Trump had said his campaign was planning events in Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, and Texas – but nothing has been announced.

The president, who has no public events on his schedule for Monday, will be in Arizona on Tuesday to visit the border and address an assembly of youth. He’ll also travel to Wisconsin on Thursday to the Fincantieri Mariette Marine.   

In a statement, the Trump campaign blamed the ‘fake news media’ for ‘warning people away from the rally’ over COVID-19 and protests against racial injustice around the country. 

‘Leftists and online trolls doing a victory lap, thinking they somehow impacted rally attendance, don´t know what they’re talking about or how our rallies work,’ Parscale wrote. 

‘Reporters who wrote gleefully about TikTok and K-Pop fans – without contacting the campaign for comment – behaved unprofessionally and were willing dupes to the charade.’

Tim Murtaugh, the communications director for the Trump campaign, tweeted on Sunday: ‘Trolls thinking they hacked rally tix don’t know how this works. 

‘Lame trick tried many times. We weed out bogus RSVPs with fake phone#s. All rallies are general admission. Real factor was media-stoked fear. Most media didn’t bother to ask us anyway.’ 

The president and his team had a variety of reasons for the lack of a crowd, including media reports on the rising number of coronavirus cases in Oklahoma and protesters outside of arena, claiming they blocked the security lines so people could not get inside.

‘I have been watching the fake news for weeks now. And everything is negative,’ Trump said in his remarks.

‘We had some very bad people outside. They were doing bad things. But I really do appreciate it,’ he told those who showed up.

‘You saw these thugs that came along,’ Trump complained of the peaceful demonstrators outside the BOK Center, many of whom wore ‘Black Lives Matters’ t-shirts.