Mick Mulvaney dismisses coronavirus as being hyped to ‘bring down’ Donald Trump

Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney accused the media of working against President Trump on the coronavirus outbreak – even as he predicted some American schools would ‘probably’ be shut down in a future response. 

‘They think this will bring down the president. That’s what it’s all about,’ Mulvaney griped at the annual CPAC conservative gabfest. 

He said of the disease that has now impacted 50 countries: ‘It’s not a death sentence. It’s not the same as the Ebola crisis.’

He continued: ‘What I might do to calm the markets is turn the television off for 24 hours. This is not Ebola… It’s not SARS. It’s not MERS,’ Mulvaney said, pointing to epidemics.’

‘When you look at the severity of diseases, one of the ways you can look at it is you can look at the percentage of people who get it who die,’ he explained. He noted that many people die from ordinary flu.

It looks like this disease is some place between 1 and 2 percent fatal. Is that serious, it absolutely is, there’s no question about it.’ He also noted it’s ‘much easier to get’ than Ebola. ‘This is something we know how to deal with.’

‘We sit there and watch the markets and there’s this huge panic. Why isn’t there this panic every single year over flu?’ he asked. 

He accused the press of sensationalizing coverage, and pointed to efforts the administration took to close borders and try to stem the outbreak here. ‘While real news was happening, the press was covering their hoax of the day,’ he said. 

His up-beat remarks about the virus came even as South Korea closed all of its schools and Italy contended with the spread of the disease, which emerged from China late last year.

‘Are you going to see some schools shut down? Probably,’ he predicted. ‘May you see impacts on public transportation? Sure,’ he said. ‘But we do this. We know how to handle this,’ he said. 

Mulvaney was interviewed on stage by Michael Moore, who had been Trump’s choice to join the Federal Reserve before his nomination fell apart. 

Mulvaney spoke to Stephen Moore of the Heritage Foundation. Moore had been Trump’s pick to join the Federal Reserve

Mulvaney said Trump did not sleep the night before his chaotic hour-long press conference. Trump returned this week from India

He also said the bureaucracy was working against Trump. 

‘There are men and women who work in this government every single day. You want bureaucrats who work just as hard for Donald Trump as they did for Barack Obama. That’s only fair. They’re taking your tax dollars.’

‘They should work just as hard for Donald Trump, and that has not happened,’ he said. 

Moore called Trump a ‘freak of nature’ for his energy. ‘Does the guy ever sleep? He’s the most Energizer bunny guy I’ve ever met. I can’t imagine being his chief of staff,’ he said. 

‘The phone calls start about 6 am’ and don’t come after midnight, he said.

Mulvaney said he missed Trump’s trip to India because he has a cold and the ‘doctor did not clear for the trip because everybody gets sick on the airplane.’

He said Trump ‘did not sleep on the flight home and I know that because he’s emailing and texting and taking phone calls.’

‘He did that press conference Wednesday night. That thing you saw for an hour – he had not slept for a day and a half, two and a half,’ he told the crowd. 

‘When we do those kinds of trips, if I had been on the trip, we sleep in shifts so that somebody is always up. The man just never sleeps,’ Moore said.

Mulvaney also predicted Trump will be impeached again if Democrats keep the House.

The president asks me: “Do you think I’ll be impeached again?” You tell me who’s in charge of the House. If it’s Nancy Pelosi, the answer [is] sure, why not,’ he said.