President Donald J. Trump, joined by members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, takes questions from reporters during a coronavirus update briefing Saturday, March 21, 2020, in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks)

President Donald Trump gave a press conference today about extending the timeline for guidelines to be in place to help fight the Wuhan coronavirus. He said that they had decided to keep the guidelines in place until April 30, but that they expected the peak to hit in about two weeks and were hopeful that there would be recovery by June 1.

During the presser, Trump took a question from a CNN reporter, who asked about comments which Trump had made last week.

As we reported, CNN had falsely reported the comments, claiming that Trump asked governors to be appreciative of him. But that wasn’t what Trump said, as Trump made clear today when the reporter asked, saying that CNN had left out the full context of his comments.

First, CNN reporter Jeremy Diamond asked if Trump envisioned relaxing restrictions in areas that weren’t as affected and Trump made it clear that the experts didn’t think that that was the best idea.

Then Diamond asked about the comments Trump made on Friday. “You were talking about governors of different states and you said I want them to be appreciative. You also said if they don’t treat you right, I don’t call.”

“I didn’t say that,” Trump exclaimed. “Excuse me, ready? Take a look at what I said.”

From Daily Wire:

Trump then got the CNN reporter to read off the full context of his remarks last week when Trump said: “I want them to be appreciative. I don’t want them to say things that aren’t true. I want them to be appreciative. We’ve done a great job. And I’m not talking about me. I’m talking about Mike Pence, the task force, I’m talking about FEMA, the Army Corps of Engineers.”

Trump made a gesture which said basically see, you just proved my point. The quote was literally the opposite of what they claimed; he specifically said he wasn’t talking about appreciating him. Trump was asking for appreciation not for himself but for the efforts of all the folks involved doing all the daily day-to-day work on the virus, from FEMA to the Army, and all the folks working around the clock.

Trump just eviscerated CNN in classic Trump style, completely dissecting every part of the reporter’s case.

President Trump calls out CNN for taking his comments about being appreciative out of context. "That is why CNN is not trusted anymore. They are Fake News." pic.twitter.com/H1ioK5FVb7 — Benny (@bennyjohnson) March 29, 2020

Oh my, can you imagine how he’s going to just slash and burn poor Joe Biden? Biden barely even can get words out coherently. What are they going to do with him in a debate against Trump?