Trump calls on CDC director to denounce 'fake news' – who admits paper's quotes were accurate

'There will be coronavirus in the fall,' Anthony Fauci says as mixed messages from White House continue in latest chaotic briefing

Donald Trump brought his Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director to a White House briefing to clean up his own warning in a news report about another coronavirus wave coinciding with the flu next fall – but Robert Redfield said he was quoted accurately. The latest White House Covid-19 press conference got wild even faster than usual.

The president's face grew red and he gestured wildly in the opening minutes of his Wednesday evening briefing, snapping at reporters and even accusing media outlets of being unhappy when the federal government ramped up production of ventilators, the breathing machines needed to treat coronavirus patients. "Who was upset about ventilators," one exasperated reporter could be heard asking the president.

At one point, just minutes after Mr Trump walked into the briefing room, reporters were yelling questions and questioning his bold claims in one of the most surreal scenes since the onset of the pandemic outbreak. Later, he told a female reporter he often with whom he often jousts to ask her question "nice and easy." When she asked about governors' claims of a testing kit shortage in their states, he called such questions a "media trap."

Among his most bold of claims was one that while Covid-19 could return next year, "what we've just gone through, we will not go through."

Mr Trump sparred with reporters in the wild opening minutes of yet another coronavirus news conference, with journalists pressing him on why he sounds so sure the virus will not return when his own experts say it could. He could not provide a scientific or medical response, however, as he quickly grew agitated.

About a half hour later, Mr Trump's top infectious disease expert, Anthony Fauci, sounded less confident. He told reporters that unless Americans continue to follow social distancing and other steps, the likelihood of a second wave will be high. A poll released on Wednesday, however, found more than half of those surveyed in six 2020 swing states believe others are taking those mitigation measures too far.

"There will be coronavirus in the fall," Mr Fauci said. "It will take off, that's what viruses do. ... We are going to respond to it to not allow it to do that."

Tempers flared after Mr Trump immediately made clear he was there, in large part, to rebut a Washington Post article published on Tuesday that was based on an interview with his CDC boss. It was topped with this headline: "CDC director warns second wave of coronavirus is likely to be even more devastating".

The crux of the presidential gripe was the word "devastating" in the headline. Mr Redfield, under questioning from reporters, acknowledged The Post quoted him accurately in the actual article. In a stunning scene, with the US death toll approaching 46,500, the president of the United States was focused on an adjective in a news article.

Mr Trump's attempt to be his own press secretary – he just hired his fourth – did not appear to go very well.

That's because Mr Redfield uttered this line: "I’m accurately quoted in the Washington Post."

Despite that, Mr Trump attempted, once again, to offer his own version of events.

"That's not what he said," the president said several times, taking umbrage with a single word in single headline of a single news article. Typically, presidents leave such work up to their press secretaries – who often further delegating to their deputies the work of making a formal complaint and request a headline be changed.

Not Mr Trump, who is hyper-sensitive to any media report he deems as negative – for himself and his political future.

Having it both ways

The latest remarkable scene in the James S. Brady Briefing Room came when the president, after urging states to start the process of reopening their economies, revealed he told Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, a Republican, he "strongly" disagrees with the state executive's decision to do so.

But "The Donald" often prefers to operate on both sides of a politically dicey issue – especially one on which his conservative base is engaged on. And conservatives across the country increasingly want to open their states.

"I think it's too soon," Mr Trump said. "But at the same time, he must do what he thinks is right."

The president won the southern state by just over 5 points in 2016, but Democrats showed gains there in the 2018 midterms: Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams, for instance, took Mr Kemp to a runoff for the governor's office. That has prompted some political prognosticators to say former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, might have an outside shot to take the state in November.