Donald Trump’s Joke About ‘Models’ During Latest Coronavirus Presser Leaves People Stunned

During Friday’s daily briefing on the constantly-evolving circumstances around coronavirus, President Donald Trump once again angered his critics with an off-hand and seemingly inappropriate joke about models. The president has regularly come under fire over his handling of the pandemic, including his remarks and actions during briefings such as these.

“Thousands of people are going to die,” Trump said at one point. “You know what I wanna do? I wanna come way under the models,” referring to the numerous projections about how the virus could continue to spread. “The professionals did the models, I was never involved in a model. At least this kind of a model. But, you know what, hundreds of thousands of people, they say they’re gonna die. I wanna come under that.”

As of Friday, the number of confirmed cases in the U.S. have jumped to 275,586 as of Friday with 7,087 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University, people were less than thrilled with the joke. Some have even recently rallied behind the call for doctors-only press conferences, in hopes that they would present viewers with necessary facts to stay safe and healthy during the ordeal.

Of course, they took to Twitter to let their feelings be known.

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On Thursday, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner took the podium during the briefing, which led to quite a few people questioning why he was fielding questions and not a medical professional or duly-elected official. 

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“What the president asks is that all of the recommendations we make be based on data,” Kushner said at one point. “He wanted us to be very rigorous, to make sure we were studying the data, collecting data. A lot of things in this country are happening very quickly, and we want to make sure that we’re trying to keep updating our models and making sure that we were making informed decisions and informed recommendations based on the data that we’re able to collect and put together.” 

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Outside the coronavirus briefing, Trump also rubbed a number of people the wrong way after he’d admitted to taking a second coronavirus test out of “curiosity,” despite the overwhelming shortages in many parts of the country. 

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“This morning, the President was tested again for COVID-19, utilizing a new, rapid point-of-care test capability,” White House physician Sean Conely wrote in a memorandum. “He is healthy and without symptoms. Sample collection took just one minute, and results were reported back in 15 minutes. The President tested negative for COVID-19.”

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“I think I took it really out of curiosity to see how quickly it worked and fast it worked,” Trump told reporters. “I’ve done them both. And the second one is much more pleasant … I can tell you that.”

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On Friday, Trump also announced that the CDC was now recommending that people do wear face masks when venturing out for essential goods. While this was previously discouraged by the administration, there is new evidence that a high number of people infected with COVID-19 could be asymptomatic.