'The View' reacts to Trump's Oval Office address on coronavirus
"The View" co-hosts reacted to President Donald Trump's Oval Office address about the novel coronavirus Wednesday night, saying it left much to be desired for quelling people's fears in the United States.
"We are marshaling the full power of the federal government," Trump said Wednesday night during a speech in which he emphasized the virus' "foreign" origin, announced a sweeping 30-day travel ban from Europe to the U.S. and called for a series of stimulus measures to prop up the American economy from the virus' side effects.
"He’s a politician that inspires anger really well," Meghan McCain said on "The View" Thursday. "[But when it comes to] the 'I feel your pain, I feel your fear'...he’s incapable of it. He could’ve been reading a phonebook last night."
"This crisis has really shown that it doesn’t matter at the end of the day how great the economy is," McCain added while pointing out how hard the stock markets have been hit as the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, continues to spread across the globe.
On Thursday, the S&P 500 plunged by more than 7% just after markets opened, triggering a temporary "circuit-breaker" trading halt for 15 minutes.
"At a certain point you want your leader to reassure you," McCain said. "To say he didn’t do that for me last night is putting it very lightly."
Sunny Hostin said she wanted to know more about the lack of test kits as well as the lack of protocol for testing travelers who are currently arriving in the U.S.
"Why don’t we have some sort of protocol for testing?" Hostin said. "I know we don’t have enough test kits, but why don’t we have enough test kits?"
Joy Behar joked, "Don’t you think this is a good time for him to resign?"
Behar praised Vice President Mike Pence and Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, for their handling of the crisis.
"I feel a little more confidence with Pence and Fauci at the helm. I do not feel any confidence with this guy," she said, referring to Trump.
McCain also praised New York Governor Andrew Cuomo for producing hand sanitizer and creating a "containment area" in the town of New Rochelle, which is just north of New York City.
"He’s made me feel really reassured," she said of Cuomo. "I think there are areas of the country where there is real leadership."
The co-hosts also discussed how Trump has misstepped several times in addressing COVID-19, including blaming the Obama administration for limiting test kits and falsely claiming "anybody who wants a test can get a test."
"When you traffic in lies and misinformation for a long period of time, the chickens are coming home to roost right now," McCain said. "For those of us who know that he lies…to lie about…a rally or numbers or things like that or how big your hands are, whatever, it’s an entirely different thing than lying about a possibly completely lethal disease... This could be the silver bullet that takes out this administration."
Agreeing with McCain, Behar compared Trump's response to COVID-19 to former President George. W. Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005. "This is his Katrina," she said.
"The [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], all the scientists working on this. There are people working on this 24 hours a day, busting their behind so I’m not putting my eggs in the basket of the man who we saw give that dull speech… I’m not listening to him," Whoopi Goldberg said. "I'm listening to the folks at the CDC, I’m washing my hands, because that’s your first line of defense."
