Just hours ahead of President Donald Trump's first virus task force briefing in weeks, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany took questions at the podium.
The Press Secretary addressed the task force briefing and heaped praise upon the President for what she said was an admirable job at relaying information regarding the pandemic that's killed over 140 thousand Americans.
Watch below.
After crediting the President with medical advancements, McEnany said:
"He is the right person to give information to the American people and boy does he get the information to a lot of the American people during his briefings as noted by the ratings as he himself pointed out."
The President's virus task force briefings did generate high ratings, but not due to a high level of trust in the President. Many tuned in to hear from medical experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci, and others tuned in just to see what the President would say.
Some of his most alarming moments—like musing about the effectiveness of injecting people with bleach to kill the virus—came out of these briefings.
Many Twitter users pointed out the times Trump didn't convey accurate information.
People didn't hesitate to point out to McEnany that ratings don't guarantee trust.
The President has praised himself for the ratings generated by the briefings, but data showed that the public doesn't have faith in his ability to relay accurate information. According to a FiveThirtyEight report from just a week after Trump boasted about his ratings, more than half of Americans only trusted Trump a little bit or not at all when it came to disseminating information about the virus.
That trend has largely held and—according to some polls—has only grown worse. A Washington Post poll released this past Friday found that two-thirds of Americans found Trump to be an unreliable source of information regarding the pandemic. A New York Times poll found a similar result.
People were alarmed with the administration's emphasis on television ratings as a gauge of legitimacy and stability.
The President featured no medical experts at his Tuesday afternoon briefing.
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