Donald Trump speaks to reporters on the White House lawn before leaving for South Carolina, February 28, 2020

Donald Trump blames the media and Democrats for Coronavirus, amid concern over new US cases and a record-setting downturn in the stock market.

Trump’s first statement on Wednesday failed to provide reassurance, with experts noting his contradiction of health officials and his slashing of budgets for disease control and questioning his appointment of Vice President Mike Pence to lead a Government response.

So Trump made another appearance on Friday, as doctors confirmed the first three locally-transmitted cases in California, Oregon, and Washington — and as a Government whistleblower claimed staff had no protection as they met those suspected of carrying the virus.

Trump asserted that media such as CNN are “doing everything they can to instill fear in people”. He told a rally in South Carolina on Friday night of a “new hoax” after the investigation of his links with Russia and his impeachment trial:

Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. We did one of the great jobs. You say, “How’s President Trump doing?” They go, “Oh, not good, not good.’ They have no clue.”

Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney recycled the Trump theme of a coup by the deep state, telling conservative activists: “They think this will bring down the president; that’s what this is all about.”

Trump has been unsettled and angered by the dramatic fall in the stock market, affecting his 2020 re-election campaign.

The Dow Jones and S&P 500 indexes fell about 12% this week, their worst performance since the 2008 Great Recession.

And that historic decline could have been even greater. At one point on Friday morning, the Dow Jones was down more than 1,000 points — on course for the third four-digit fall in the week — before recovering to lose only 357 points by the closing bell.

Reality v. Spin

Meanwhile, US officials were trying to check the spread of Coronavirus. The State Department urged Americans to reconsider traveling to northern Italy, where 19 people have died amid 820 cases. The Department of Health and Human Services’ Inspector General announced a “comprehensive review” of the Government’s response.

But in another sign of the Trump camp’s attempt to limit information which it finds politically damaging, it ordered Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, to get permission before he made any of six scheduled TV appearances.

At a White House briefing, Health Secretary Alex Azar, Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought, and legislative director Eric Ueland only took a few questions after reading prepared talking points.

Administration officials held a briefing at the White House featuring Alex Azar, the secretary of health and human services, along with Russell Vought, the budget director, and Eric Ueland, the White House legislative director. After each official read off a series of prepared talking points, they took only a handful of questions from journalists.

Vice President Pence, supposedly leading the emergency response, spent Friday at a Florida fundraiser and in the studio of radio demagogue Rush Limbaugh, who has claimed that Coronavirus is a deep state conspiracy against Trump.

Chief of Staff Mulvaney, echoing Trump, portrayed fears over Coronavirus as exaggerated: “The flu kills people. This is not Ebola. It’s not SARS, it’s not MERS. It’s not a death sentence; it’s not the same as the Ebola crisis.”

Donald Trump Jr. told the conservative conference that the threat was not Coronavirus but enemies within America, “For them to try to take a pandemic and seemingly hope that it comes here and kills millions of people so that they can end Donald Trump’s streak of winning is a new level of sickness.”