Trump's Brief Coronavirus Briefing Sends #TrumpIsALaughingStock Trending

President Donald Trump’s unusually short coronavirus press conference Friday perfectly illustrated why they are called “briefings.” Compared to the president’s normal two hours-plus at the mic, his under-six minutes at week’s end couldn’t get any briefer.

Social media, of course, noted Friday’s briefing and the uncharacteristically quiet Trump, who made opening remarks and, without taking a single question, turned it over to Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the Food and Drugs Administration, and Vice President Mike Pence, causing a number of Trump-related hashtags to start trending.

“Love that he walked out to the question, ‘Mr. President, is now the time for sarcasm?’ #TrumpIsALaughingStock,” filmmaker Morgan Freeman tweeted.

While another Twitter user wrote: “I just noticed #TrumpIsALaughingStock is trending #1 and he is on TWITTER pretty much all day, this must be driving him crazy that he is a world wide buffoon.”

Also Read: Fox News' Bret Baier Rejects Trump's Claim Disinfectant Comment Was Sarcasm: 'That's Not How It Looked'

“Trump dodged reporters’ questions like they were draft letters. #TrumpPressConference,” Mark Rahner tweeted.

And “Jeopardy! Champ Ken Jennings wrote, “I would like to announce that when I gave wrong answers on Jeopardy, I was being sarcastic.”

#TrumpIsNotADoctor, #TrumpDisinfectant, #sarcasm and #25thAmendmentBeforeWeAllDie also gathered steam after Trump’s brief brief.

According to four sources who spoke with Axios, plans are in place for the president to stop daily briefings and, when he does have one, they will be noticeably shorter. Multiple sources have reported that several of his advisers have, behind the scenes, been urging him to end the lengthy briefings, which have frequently resulted in him saying something that either he or someone on the coronavirus task force had to later explain, retract or contradict.

Also Read: White House Press Secretary Blames Media for 'Negative Headlines' About Trump Suggesting Disinfectant Injections

An Axios source said that an adviser told the president that he is “overexposed,” and the pressers are not only not helping him, but, in fact, they are hurting his poll numbers. “Seniors are scared,” the source said. “And the spectacle of him fighting with the press isn’t what people want to see.”

Friday’s press conference comes on the heels of Trump wondering out loud Thursday if the use of heat or light or injecting people with disinfectants could cure coronavirus. The incident sparked global outrage and concern that people following the president’s suggestion might get hurt or even die if they ingested bleach or household cleaners.

And Lysol — the manufacturer of cleaning products — put out a statement early Friday morning stating that “under no circumstance should our disinfectant products be administered into the human body (through injection, ingestion or any other route).”

Also Read: Trump Signs $484 Billion Relief Package, $321 Billion Allocated for Small Business Loans

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany blamed the media Friday for the negative attention, saying his comments were taken out of context. The POTUS contradicted that explanation, saying from the Oval Office that he was ” asking a question sarcastically to reporters like you just to see what would happen.”

According to data from Johns Hopkins University, the coronavirus death toll in the United States surpassed 50,000 Friday, with more than 886,000 total cases of COVID-19. With both its death toll and the total number of COVID-19 cases, the U.S. surpasses all other countries.

These Celebrities Reached Into Their Pockets to Help Us Get Through the Pandemic (Photos)

As the number of people sickened by COVID-19 continues to rise, there is certainly no shortage of kind acts from people helping others get through the pandemic. And that includes celebrities and Hollywood artists social distancing like the rest of us. These famous do-gooders are reaching into their own pockets to make life under quarantine just a little bit easier.
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Oprah Winfrey announced on social media that she is donating $10 million to relief efforts, with $1 million of that specifically helping people who are struggling to buy food during the pandemic.
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Rihanna’s charitable organization Clara Lionel Foundation made a commitment of $5 million that will go to U.S. food banks as well as to helping advance testing in at-risk communities both in the U.S. and in Haiti and Malawi. The foundation — along with Twitter's Jack Dorsey — also partnered with the Mayor's Fund for Los Angeles and committed $2.1 million toward shelter, meals and counseling for victims of domestic violence. The fund, combined with Dorsey's contribution, totals $4.2 million.
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10-time Grammy-winner Taylor Swift has been quietly contacting people on social media who have said they've been struggling to pay bills during the pandemic. Those users then shared screenshots of Swift making donations to them of several thousand dollars each.
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TV host Kelly Ripa and husand Mark Consuelos donated $1 million to both the New York governor’s office, for the purchase of ventilators, and WIN, a New York-based organization that provides shelters to homeless women and children.
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Writer Roxane Gay has tweeted several times during the pandemic asking for those struggling to pay bills during the pandemic to share their mobile payment handle to receive personal donations from her.
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Ryan Reynolds and wife Blake Lively announced on social media that they donated $1 million to Feeding America and Food Banks Canada.
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Pop star Ariana Grande said in her Instagram Stories that she had made donations to several organizations, including Opportunity Fund, GiveDirectly, Feeding America, Croce Rossa Italiana and the World Health Organization.
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A physician in Los Angeles, Dr. Thais Aliabad, wrote on Instagram that Kylie Jenner, one of her patients, had "donated $1,000,000 to help us buy hundreds of thousands of masks, face shields, and other protective gear."
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NFL player Drew Brees told TMZ that he's donating $5 million to the state of Louisiana to help with the coronavirus relief efforts.
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Oscar-winning actress and humanitarian Angelina Jolie donated $1 million to No Kid Hungry to help provide meals for children in low-income families, the organization said in a statement.
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Country music legend Dolly Parton said on Instagram that she donated $1 million to Vanderbilt's research for a COVID-19 cure.
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Jay-Z's Shawn Carter Foundation matched Rihanna's donation of $1 million to relief efforts.
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Bruno Mars, who has a residency in Las Vegas, donated $1 million to the MGM Resorts Foundation to help MGM employees in the city who lost work due to the pandemic, his representative said, according to E News.
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The players, coaches and owners of the Golden State Warriors announced they are donating $1 million to help employees at the Chase Center who lost work because of canceled NBC games.
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Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg partnered with a Silicon Valley food bank to put $5.5 million toward creating the COVID-19 Emergency Fund for Feeding Families.
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Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey said on his platform that he is donating $1 billion in shares of his other company Square Inc. to help fund relief efforts. Dorsey said it is about 28% of his wealth. After "we disarm the pandemic," Dorsey said, the money will also help fund girls' health and education, as well as universal basic income.

Along with Rihanna's charitable foundation, committed $2.1 million toward shelter, meals and counseling for victims of domestic violence for a total $4.2 million grant.
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Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said on Instagram that he is giving $100 million to Feeding America, an organization with more than 200 food banks across the country.
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Beyonce's BeyGOOD foundation also partnered with Jack Dorsey, teaming up with his #startsmall initiative to donate $6 million to local community organizations so they can provide necessities like food, cleaning supplies, protective gear, medicines and more.
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Greg Berlanti pledged $1 million in COVID-19 relief funds that will go directly to the 5,000 staffers working on the 17 series currently in play at Berlanti Productions, as well as others in the entertainment industry that have been affected by the shutdown. He announced the gesture in a company-wide memo on April 29
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There is certainly no shortage of kind acts from people helping others get through the coronavirus pandemic, and that includes celebrities and Hollywood artists social distancing like the rest of us

As the number of people sickened by COVID-19 continues to rise, there is certainly no shortage of kind acts from people helping others get through the pandemic. And that includes celebrities and Hollywood artists social distancing like the rest of us. These famous do-gooders are reaching into their own pockets to make life under quarantine just a little bit easier.

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These Celebrities Reached Into Their Pockets to Help Us Get Through the Pandemic (Photos)

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