MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough reacted Monday morning to President Trump’s comments over the weekend that the United States should “slow the testing down” to find fewer coronavirus cases, saying Trump’s comments were not funny and the pandemic is not a partisan talking point
Scarborough added that not testing for coronavirus won’t actually lower the number of cases any more than refusing to take a pregnancy test could nullify a person’s pregnancy.
Scarborough’s co-host and wife, Mika Brzezinski, jumped in, pointing out that NBC News was reporting a senior White House official had said Trump’s comments were clearly jokes while senior trade advisor Peter Navarro told CNN Sunday that the comments were “tongue in cheek.”
The two agreed the comments were not funny.
Scarborough noted that the pandemic is not a joke and not a partisan issue: “It’s anti-science. It’s anti-medicine. Again, this is an administration — this is a president — that is running against a pandemic and as we’ve tried to say from the beginning calmly and in an encouraging way, a pandemic is always going to win. They don’t care about your politics. They don’t care if you’re on the left or if you’re on the right. They don’t care if you’re holding Trump rallies or if you’re having Black Lives Matter rallies.”
Attendees at Trump’s Tulsa rally did not have to wear face masks.
Public health officials and Democrats denounced Trump’s comments about slowing down testing. “The President is ethically unfit and intellectually unprepared to lead,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement.
Over the weekend, the number of coronavirus deaths in the United States surpassed 120,000.