The communist Chinese government has initiated a campaign to deflect responsibility for the global havoc caused by the COVID-19 coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China, by accusing people of racism for calling the virus the Wuhan, China or Chinese virus. On Tuesday, China moved to kick out several American reporters in a spat with the Trump administration over the limiting of the number of Chinese government propagandists acting as journalists allowed in the U.S.

PBS NewsHour reporter Yamiche Alcindor badgers President Trump about the “kung flu” rumor at Wednesday’s coronavirus press briefing, screen image.

The U.S. media is happy to follow the communist Chinese government playbook with reporters attacking President Trump and other officials for using those terms or in the case of CBS reporter Weijia Jiang, accusing without evidence an unnamed official of calling the virus the “kung flu.”

At Wednesday’s press briefing at the White House by the coronavirus task force that was led by President Trump, two reporters badgered Trump about his use of the term “Chinese virus”.

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ABC News reporter Cecilia Vega was first (report and TGP transcript at this link.)

Video posted to Twitter by the MRC’s Kyle Drennen:

ABC's @CeciliaVega attacks Trump during presser, says "it's racist" to use the phrase "Chinese virus" pic.twitter.com/CsE6gkyQxZ — Kyle Drennen (@kjdrennen) March 18, 2020

Toward the end of the briefing, Trump was again badgered on the issue, this time by PBS NewsHour reporter Yamiche Alcindor who initially brought up the “king flu” rumor. (Earlier Wednesday, Alcindor had gone after senior White House advisor Kellyanne Conway about the “king flu” rumor at a briefing on the White House driveway. Video and report at this link.)

CLIP: President Trump is asked about the term 'Kung Flu' Watch complete news conference here: https://t.co/GwQnJ0pwmo pic.twitter.com/ElDbKUvrgU — CSPAN (@cspan) March 18, 2020

TGP transcript:

Alcindor: “Mr. President, There’s federal, there’s reporting that the federal government has a plan that shows this coronavirus outbreak might last as much, as long as eighteen months. Are you seeing those numbers, could it…”

Trump: “No, we’re not seeing that at all.”

Alcindor: “And…my second question is there are some, at least one White House official who used the term ‘kung flu’ referring to the fact that this virus started in China. Is that acceptable? Is it wrong? Are you worried that, that having this virus be talked about as a Chinese virus that, that…”

Trump: “I wonder who said. Do you know who said that?”

Alcindor: “I’m not sure of the person’s name. But would you condemn the fact of “kung flu”?

Trump: “Say the term again.”

Alcindor: “A person at the White House used the term…”

Trump: “Just the term.”

Alcindor: …”Kung flu. My question is…”

Trump: “Kung flu.”

Alcindor: “Do you think that’s wrong? Kung flu. And do you think using the term ‘Chinese virus’, that puts Asian-American at risk? That people might target them?”

Trump: “No, not at all, not at all. I think they probably, uh, would agree with it a hundred percent. It comes from China. There’s nothing not to agree with.”

An example of the communist China media propaganda machine in action, which sounds a lot like U.S. White House reporters: “”Why is “Chinese virus” so wrong? People on social media lash out against the xenophobic & racist name attached to #coronavirus:-Virus has no nationality; No nation can own it-Tactic to cast blame, distract from own incompetence-Incitement of hatred”