“I’m saying it to anybody that would ask a nasty question like that.”
US President Donald Trump abruptly left a press conference on Monday after a clash with reporters where he told an Asian-American reporter: “Don’t ask me. Ask China.”
On the White House rose garden, Trump gave his first press conference since 27 April flanked by new testing equipment and said the US is leading world in testing.
Following his speech, Trump took some questions from reporters.
CBS’s Weijia Jiang, an Asian-American reporter, asked Trump why his administration was touting its coronavirus-testing numbers and comparing them with other countries’ totals.
“Why does that matter?” she asked. “Why is this a global competition to you if every day Americans are still losing their lives and we are still seeing more cases every day?”
Trump responded by saying: “Well, they’re losing their lives everywhere in the world. And maybe that’s a question you should ask China.
“Don’t ask me. Ask China that question. OK? When you ask them that question, you may get a very unusual answer.”
He then attempted to move on and take a question from another reporter, but Jiang questioned the response.
President Trump walked out of a press conference abruptly after he got into an argument with CBS’ @weijia and refused to take questions from CNN’s @kaitlancollins pic.twitter.com/MqIh49QkKC
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 11, 2020
“Sir, why are you saying that to me, specifically that I should ask China?” she said.
Jiang has worked for CBS News since 2015; she was born in China and immigrated to America at the age of two.
“I’m not saying it specifically to anybody,” Trump said. “I’m saying it to anybody that would ask a nasty question like that.”
“That’s not a nasty question,” Jiang said. “Why does it matter?”
Trump then again asked for another question, but skipped over CNN’s Kaitlan Collins when she tried to ask a question before thanking the press and leaving the podium.
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