Maddow hits Trump’s ‘happy talk’ on virus: ‘I would stop putting those briefings on live TV’

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow suggested Friday night that President Trump should be taken off the air during the coronavirus pandemic, saying that the president’s “misinformation” surrounding the outbreak could “cost lives.”

“I know we ought to be getting used to this kind of thing by now, but I’m not. President Trump today, again, just flat-out wrong in public about this malaria drug that has gotten stuck in his mind, quite some distance from the facts,” Maddow said on her show.

“If the president does end up saying anything true, you can run it as tape but if he keeps lying like this every day on stuff this important, all of us should stop broadcasting it. Honestly, it’s gonna cost lives,” she added on the program.

Maddow: If Trump is going to keep lying like he has been every day on stuff this important, we should, all of us, stop broadcasting it. Honestly, it’s going to cost lives. pic.twitter.com/tMvyrE3YTK

— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) March 21, 2020

Trump declared earlier Friday at a coronavirus task force press conference that malaria medication, which doctors are hoping to use to treat COVID-19, was effective at battling the disease.

However, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, quickly walked back the president’s assertion, saying the drug has yet to go through official clinical trials and doesn’t yet have FDA approval to fight to the virus.

Since last Saturday, Trump and the administration’s task force have been giving daily briefings on the virus and the government’s response to the pandemic. The virus has infected nearly 20,000 Americans and killed at least 260.

The virus has brought daily life in the U.S. to a halt for many across the country, with multiple states issuing “shelter in place” orders for their residents and the White House urging everyone in the country to practice social distancing for at least two weeks.