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President Donald Trump again attacked the media at his latest coronavirus press briefing, but the trigger was a question about a tweet he sent earlier on Wednesday afternoon, claiming that the media wants the economy to falter to hurt his chances at reelection.

Trump tweeted, The LameStream Media is the dominant force in trying to get me to keep our Country closed as long as possible in the hope that it will be detrimental to my election success. The real people want to get back to work ASAP. We will be stronger than ever before!

But that drew questions among journalists on whether his pronouncement that he wants to lift social distancing guidelines and reopen the country by Easter is based on his own political considerations.

At the briefing, CBS News White House correspondent Paula Reid asked,Is this Easter timeline based on your political interests?

The media would like to see me do poorly in the election, Trump responded.

Then Reid interjected,Lawmakers and economists on both sides of the aisle have said that reopening the country by Easter is not a good idea. What is that plan based on?

I think there are certain people who would like it not to open so quickly, Trump said. I think there are certain people who would like it to do financially poorly because they feel that would be very good as far as defeating me at the polls. I dont think that is so, but I think it is so that there are a lot of people in your profession that would like that to happen.

He went on, telling Reid, I think it is very clear that there are people in your profession that write fake news you do.

He added, They would love to see me, for whatever reason, because we have done one hell of a job. No one has done the job that we have done. And it is lucky that you have this group here right now for this problem. Or you wouldnt even have a country left.

After Trump left the briefing, Vice President Mike Pence and other members of the coronavirus task force continued to answer questions. CNN and MSNBC eventually switched away from the briefings while Fox News stayed with it.

The briefings have generated large audiences for the news networks. According to Nielsen, 11 million viewers watched Tuesdays briefing on the three news channels, with Fox News drawing 5.5 million, CNN garnering 3.1 million and MSNBC with 2.4 million. Those figures do not include the audiences watching on broadcast networks and web platforms.

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Donald Trumps Latest Media Attack Invites Questions Of Whether He Wants Easter Reopening To Boost Election Chances - Deadline

In war, resolution; in defeat, defiance; in victory, magnanimity; in peace, goodwill. Winston Churchill

President TrumpDonald John TrumpDefense industrial base workers belong at home during this public health crisis Maduro pushes back on DOJ charges, calls Trump 'racist cowboy' House leaders hope to vote Friday on coronavirus stimulus MORE says America is fighting a war on an invisible enemy the war is against the virus, thats the war. He sees himself as a wartime president, implicitly invoking the image of Franklin Roosevelt during World War II or perhaps George W. Bush after 9/11.

War is an apt description of the national mobilization effort being waged against the coronavirus pandemic by the president, governors, local officials and the nations public health community.

But the outbreak has dramatized that the United States and the Western world are under attack by an adversary that is actually quite visible. The Peoples Republic of China, with reckless disregard for the consequences, initially refused to take the necessary actions to halt the outbreak of COVID-19 affecting its own population, then its Asian neighbors, and finally the rest of the world.

The unresolved question for now is whether the global spread of the virus resulted exclusively from the ruling Communist Partys incompetence, stubborn bureaucratic rigidity, and inclination to evade the truth, qualities it displayed in previous epidemics.

Further intelligence work over time may reveal a possible connection to other contemporaneous facts. Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, also happens to be the location of at least two Chinese government biomedical research laboratories. One was established by Professor Charles Lieber, an American who heads Harvards Chemistry and Chemical Biology Department. Lieber, who funded the project with a U.S. grant, recently was indicted by the Justice Department for hiding his China connections.

At the same time, two Chinese academics were arrested in Boston, one for violating U.S. law by not disclosing herinvolvement with the Chinese government, and the other for stealing 21 vials of biological materials and attempting to smuggle them to China.

Even if those criminal deceptions and thefts of intellectual property are purely coincidental and unrelated to the pandemic, they reflect the Cold War strategy China has been waging against the United States for decades, which is finally getting the attention it demands.

In the 1940s, Winston Churchill called on the Free World to muster its resolution in the war against the Nazis and Fascists in Europe. In this eras existential confrontation with China, Trump has been the first president to demonstrate that kind of resolve on the economic and trade front, on Taiwan, and on Chinas maritime aggression in the South China Sea. His administration also has taken unprecedented action on human rights, journalistic freedom and diplomatic reciprocity.

Yet, while Trumps national security team has had significant success in several arenas of contention with Beijing, his instinctual application of Churchills magnanimity in victory principle is premature and misdirected.

Even before the economic effects of the pandemic, Beijing had a long way to go in making the structural domestic changes the president has demanded to achieve fair trade and transparent economic relations. It has reneged on commitments on intellectual property theft and in other areas. Its aggression against Taiwan and in the South China Sea has escalated.

Trump maintains that he has good personal chemistry with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and praises his leadership. Xi never publicly reciprocates the compliments, keeping his focus on America as Communist Chinas prime adversary. The president even gave China a pass for undermining sanctions against North Korea, whose nuclear and missile programs increasingly threaten the United States and its allies. (Similarly, he excuses Kim Jong UnKim Jong UnDonald Trump as Winston Churchill? Overnight Defense: Navy hospital ship heading to Los Angeles | Military field hospitals to deploy to New York, Seattle | Pompeo flies to Afghanistan to revive peace process North Korea says Trump offered country help amid coronavirus pandemic MORE for his ongoing missile tests, and absolved him of responsibility for his regime's torture and murder of Otto Warmbier.)

After initially praising Xi for working very hard and acting responsibly to contain the outbreak, Trump has come around to wishing that China had been more forthcoming much earlier about its spread so that other countries could have prepared their defenses more effectively. What triggered Trumps criticism was Chinas disinformation campaign blatantly suggesting that the virus started not in Wuhan, China, but elsewhere, possibly even with the U.S. Army.

As you know China tried to say at one point maybe they stopped now that it was caused by American soldiers, Trump told reporters on March 18. That cant happen. Its not going to happen, not as long as Im president. It comes from China.

He retaliated against the slander by referring repeatedly to the Chinese virus, which immediately invited cries of racism and reports that Asian Americans were being targeted for verbal and even physical abuse. In his Monday news conference, Trump avoided the term, saying at one point that the virus came from somewhere, though he eventually mentioned that China was the original source.

The entire pandemic experience seems to have reinforced what the president knows intuitively and what his National Defense Strategy lays out in national security prose. America is confronting a multidimensional and existential challenge from Communist China and must respond not only with economic, military and other national security means, but also on the ideological level, even if Trump would spurn that term.

For the rest of the world, the global crisis that China has created has starkly confirmed what most already know or fear about its government that it is, at best, politically corrupt and untrustworthy, and at worst, brutally inhumane and aggressive in its intentions. This awareness provides a historic opportunity for Washington to undertake a Cold War-level information campaign, both within and outside China, to demand fundamental political reform. As was done regarding Taiwan and in South Korea, the process can be accomplished peacefully and incrementally but inexorably, leading to full democratization.

When China is finally on that path, which it has falsely promised under four decades of engagement, the president can claim a very, very powerful victory over the virus that is, the political malady of Chinese Communism. Then, in the spirit of both Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt, he can show American magnanimity to the liberated Chinese people.

Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2006 and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief from 2009 to 2010. He is a nonresident fellow at the Institute for Corean-American Studies and a member of the advisory board of the Global Taiwan Institute.

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Donald Trump as Winston Churchill? | TheHill - The Hill

Before he abruptly took up residence in Florida, Donald TrumpDonald John TrumpDefense industrial base workers belong at home during this public health crisis Maduro pushes back on DOJ charges, calls Trump 'racist cowboy' House leaders hope to vote Friday on coronavirus stimulus MORE was a dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker. He was born and grew up in the bedroom community of Jamaica Estates, Queens. New Yorkers think of Queens as a low- to middle-income melting pot community with blacks as well as Latinos, Indians and other foreign-born people comprising its swelling populations. When Donald Trump was young, Jamaica Estates was more monolithic. It was then almost exclusively white. Minorities, Italians, Jews and people of color would have had difficulty purchasing homes.

Donald Trump doesnt seem to like New York anymore. Its not where his votes are. He has trashed New York as a high-tax state, blamed it for being hot with disease, a haven for undocumented immigrants and a sanctuary city protecting immigrants from the wrath of family-separating ICE agents.

Trump hates New York so much that he eliminated the federal tax deduction for paid New York State and City taxes that Republican Sen. Al DAmato once fought so hard to leave in place. As a result, the state comptroller says New York gave the federal government $26.6 billion more than it got back. Incongruously, it stands last in line for federal benefits.

Trumps seminal roots are in New York. Trumps father, Fred C. Trump, to whom Donald owes his fortune, started a garage-building business, which morphed in the 1920s into single-family row houses principally in Brooklyn and Queens. As World War II loomed, Fred Trump procured government contracts for apartments and barracks for servicemen. After the war he constructed 27,000 FHA subsidized apartments in Brooklyn and Queens from which Donald Trump derives income to this day. Trumps father was successful beyond fantasy and passed on to his children $1 billion tax-free.

Trumps children were educated in New York. His mother, Mary MacLeod Trump, an immigrant from Scotland, is buried beside her husband and Trumps older brother in Middle Village, Queens.

For Trump, it all happened in New York. The monument to his auto-deification, Trump Tower at Fifth Avenue and East 54th Street, was built in the 1980s at the epicenter of Manhattan, now the national epicenter of the coronavirus. On the debit side of the ledger, New York also was the site of his many business failures. And, when Trump went down, he allegedly left some of his New York creditors hanging.

Today, New York is in coronavirus crisis and desperately needs federal help. The figures have become painfully familiar. At last report, more than 30,000 COVID-19 cases have sprawled across the state, accounting for more than half of all confirmed cases in the country. New York City may have to close parks, playgrounds and some streets to reduce density. Serious stuff.

According to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who gets high marks from many for his leadership in this crisis, the states hospitalization rate is moving faster than initial estimates, and health officials project that 140,000 people will be hospitalized over the next 14 to 21 days. The state previously said it would need 110,000 beds for COVID-19 patients by early to mid-May. Elmhurst Hospital Center, a 545-bed public hospital in Queens located only eight miles from Jamaica Estates, Trumps childhood home, is becoming exclusively a COVID-19 facility. The situation there smacks of the macabre. In a recent 24-hour period, 13 people perished at Elmhurst, some in the emergency room while waiting for assignment to a bed. A refrigerated truck waits outside to receive the bodies of the dead. A resident physician declared, Its apocalyptic.

The U.S. Senate passed a $2 trillion bail-out bill that, according to Cuomo, would really be terrible for the State of New York. Only $3.8 billion, or possibly less, would go to New York, with only $1.4 billion headed for New York City. Sounds like big bucks but That is a drop in the bucket compared with what New Yorkers need, Cuomo argues. How do you plug a $15 billion hole with $3.8 billion? You dont.

New York has on hand 30,000 ventilators short of what will be required. Ventilators are essential to save the lives of the afflicted. I always understood Trump and his followers to be pro-life but I guess the doctrine applies only when fetal life is threatened by abortion clinics. New York is short on surgical masks and protective equipment, so health care providers may be at heightened risk of getting sick. The strategic national reserve may have masks but they are reportedly falling apart because of worn elasticity. FEMA said it would send the state 400, and Vice President Pence later said he would send 4,000 from the stockpile. Its a joke. None of this is enough to save the lives in peril.

A friend in a position to know told me that a large hospital in New York, where beds might be available for coronavirus patients, has a paucity of masks and gowns. The private sector is producing masks, but delivery will be delayed until as early as summer. There is a supply of masks available from China, but the center of production is the very province where the pandemic originated. There is clearly a role for the federal government.

Without equipment, untold numbers of New Yorkers will die effectively untreated in makeshift field hospitals. Nevertheless, Trump says he is itching to re-open the country. Yet, Cuomo reminds us that the number of deadly coronavirus cases is increasing at a faster clip than had been projected, doubling every three days. The apex is higher than we thought, Cuomo said. And the apex is sooner than we thought. That is a bad combination

Trump is a recent immigrant to Florida. Did he do it to save taxes? Or did he conclude correctly that Florida is where the votes reside? Or is he thinking ahead to his legal exposure after he leaves office? Whatever the reason, why turn his back on New York to which he owes so much? King Lear had it right: How sharper than a serpents tooth to have a thankless child.

James D. Zirin, a retired partner of the Chicago-headquartered law firm of Sidley Austin, is the author of the recently published book, Plaintiff in Chief A Portrait of Donald Trump in 3,500 Lawsuits. He is a former assistant United States attorney for the Southern District of New York.

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Donald Trump: New York's thankless child | TheHill - The Hill

During a White House press conference on Thursday afternoon, President Donald Trump addressed the grim projections by the National Restaurant Association that, in addition to the 3 percent of restaurants already shuttered, 11 percent of restaurants nationwide anticipate that theyll close permanently in the next 30 days due to the economic impact of novel coronavirus. His answer, characteristically bullish, was that restaurants will open and thrive again...but maybe not under the current ownership.

Citing the data from the National Restaurant Association survey, McClatchy reporter Michel Wilner asked, What do you say to a restaurant owner who is looking at his sheets and thinks he has to close within the next 30 days?

The president responded with a tangent boasting his knowledge of the restaurant industry, saying, I know the business very well, I understand the restaurant business, its a very delicate business, its a business that is not easy. I always say in the restaurant business you can serve 30 great meals to a person or a family and they love it. One bad meal, No. 31, they never come back again. Its a very tough business. But theyre great people that run restaurants.

Circling back to the original question, Trump continued, Ive heard 3 percent could be lost, and you could go as high as 10 or 11 percent, but theyll all come back in one form of another. Might be a different restaurant. But its gonna be a great business for a lot of people. Were making it easy for people look, what were doing in terms of loans, what were doing in terms of salaries, theyll all come back. It may not be the same restaurant, it may not be the same ownership, but theyll all be back. (Emphasis ours.)

That the concept of restaurants would continue to exist after the pandemic was never really a question. The concern, rather, is that people will lose their jobs and businesses, and with that, the incomes that they circulate back into the economy. As Eaters Hillary Dixler Canavan wrote, surviving restaurants will reopen their doors to a new world of challenges, not least of which is facing a dining public likely either coming out of or in the midst of a global recession. Which doesnt bode well for these imagined new restaurants or their new ownership, either.

The freshest news from the food world every day

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Trump: Restaurants Will Survive, But It May Not Be the Same Ownership - Eater

Trump news live: Latest updates as China offers to help US tackle coronavirus | The Independent LiveUpdated Friday 27 March 2020 20:24

Donald Trump has ranted at General Motors over a delay in its production of ventilators to tackle the coronavirusoutbreak and raged at Kentucky Republican congressman Thomas Massie after he indicated he would move to delay FridaysHouse of Representativesvote on approving a $2.2trn (1.85trn) economic stimulus package.

Trump himself dismisseddemands fromgovernors for more ventilators in hospitals only last night, telling Fox News host Sean Hannity in a phone interview the equipment is unnecessary and that states shouldnt be relying on the federal government.

With the US now the global epicentre of the virus having contracted 85,000 cases and seen over 1,200 deaths, the president has received an offer of help from hisChinesecounterpartXi Jinpingas task force co-ordinator Dr Deborah Birx is accused of making fundamental scientific errors as part of the administrations rush to reopen the economy.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

Please allow a moment for our live blog to load

Trump declines to invite Democratic leadership to Oval Office signing

The president is not inviting Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi to the Oval Office signing of the CARE Act, CNN has reported.

Trump orders GM to make ventilators

The president has officially announced he is implementing the Defence Production Act-

Trump touts military vessel helping hospitals amid coronavirus pandemic

The president has retweeted the following video as the USNS Mercy was set to begin assisting patients who have not contracted Covid-19 but require medical work during the surge of coronavirus patients -

President says he will sign the CARE Act at 4pm

Donald Trump has posted a tweet teasing an apparent signing ceremony of the Coronavirus Aid Relief & Economic Securities bill in the Oval Office -

Donald Trump Jr shares racist meme depicting father as 'Kung Flu Kid'

New York and Los Angeles to remain closed through May

The Independent's Graig Graziosi has this report:

The mayors of New York City and Los Angeles have issued grim predictions about the coming weeks as their cities face rising numbers of residents infected with the coronavirus.

New York Mayor Mike De Blasio appeared onGood Morning America on Friday morning, suggesting the city would be shut down until the end of May and nearly half of its denizens will become infected withcoronavirus.

I think we need to be ready for that, Mr De Blasio said. Unfortunately we think its going to go through April and in to May. Its just a blunt reality.

He went on to say that more than half the people in this city will ultimately be infected.

New York governor slams Trump tweet about stockpiling

Governor Andrew Cuomo called the president's tweet 'incorrect and grossly uninformed' in an interview with CNN, adding: "It's ignorant."

Grieving parent Kevin Moran is in dispute with the state's governor, John Bel Edwards, over the precise cause of his son's death.

Gino Spocchia has this report.

The war-torn Middle Eastern state faces a crippling coronavirus outbreak of its own, of course.

Nice to see a spirit of bipartisan brotherhood blossoming in DC during this blighted spring.

As New York City struggles to cope with the surging number of Covid-19 cases, a doctor has released footage of the dire conditions inside her Queens hospital raising the alarm about the scale of the epidemic and the shortage of critical equipment needed to save lives.

Dr Colleen Smith works at Elmhurst Hospital, which this week saw 13 coronavirus-related deaths in a single day. The hospital has begun transferring out non-Covid patients to other hospitals in order to clear space for the sheer number of people arriving needing urgent treatment.

In the film, which she released to The New York Times, Dr Smith walks through a packed ICU unit, saying all the patients that you see, they all have Covid. It feels like its too little too late. We knew it was coming.

Today is kind of getting worse and worse. We had to get a refrigerated truck to store the bodies of patients who are dying. We are right now scrambling to try and get a few additional ventilators, or even CPAP machines. If we got CPAP machines, we could free up ventilators for patients who need them.

My my my, he's clearly feeling the pressure:

I wonder how long it took him to come up with that bright little witticism?

Aaand we're back to New York withholding ventilators.

New Orleans mayor says Trump made her think it was safe to go ahead with coronavirus-hit Mardi Gras

Leaders on the ground, we rely on the facts to make decisions for the people that we serve,she said, adding:In hindsight, if we were given clear direction, we would not have had Mardi Gras, and I would have been the leader to cancel it.

The president is seething at General Motors now for apparently letting him down on the delivery of a batch of ventilators he was telling Sean Hannity only last night the country's hospitals don't actuallyneed.

GM apparently no longer owns that facility and he himself cancelled an earlier deal for the devices from the company on cost grounds!

Here's Clark Mindock to clean up this hot mess.

Alabama Medal of Honour recipient Bennie Adkins, 86, has been hospitalised with coronavirus, his foundation announced on Thursday evening.

The Covid-19 pandemic has hit home, the Bennie Adkins Foundation said onFacebook. Bennie has been hospitalised and is critically ill with Covid-19 respiratory failure. We ask for your thoughts and prayers.

Adkins, a retired command sergeant major, received his medal from Barack Obamain September 2014 in tribute to his service during the Vietnam War.

He was first drafted into the Army in 1956 and went on to serve with the Special Forces for 13 years,complete three tours in Vietnam.

You can read a moreextensive account of his illustrious career over at Army Times.

Get well soon sir.

As the US overtook China and Italy to become the worst hit country in the world by coronavirus, the president's eldest sonwas busy posting racist memes on social media because what else is new?

You can see it via the tweet below, if you feel you must:

Don Jr also badly undermined his old man's attempt to reset relations with China last night in a separate but equally dumb and unwelcome tweet:

An ABC News/Washington Post poll released on Friday reports that 51 per cent of Americans take a favourable view of the president's response to the coronavirus disaster.

Evidentally more people need to watch this:

The big man is pleased though and has been crowing abour it on Twitter just now:

Uh oh. I do not like where this conversation is going...

Here's Andrew Feinberg with the word from Capitol Hill.

Its worse than 9/11, its worse than Pearl Harbor," one official told him."[Trump] had the information and he ignored it because he saw the measures they were recommending at the time [when] Singapore and South Korea got the virus and he didnt want to do that because it was going to hurt the economy. But by waiting he hurt the economy more and made more people from this disease.

As we touched on earlier, GOP congressman Thomas Massie has said he is considering voting against the stimulus package in the House today on idealogical grounds.

Trump does not like that, and uses his first tweets of the day to label him "a third rate Grandstander", repeating a new favourite insult also served up to AOC yesterday.

Oh look, there's more.

Here's Oliver O'Connell with a full report on Massie.

No hype, just the advice and analysis you need

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Trump news live: President succumbs to pressure to invoke emergency powers ahead of White House coronavirus update - The Independent