After touring a Honeywell factory in Arizona, which was converted to produce N95 masks, President Trump sat down for an interview with ABC’s World News Tonight anchor David Muir. And during the interview, Muir slapped Trump with a gotcha question about whether or not there would be deaths from the coronavirus while the country reopened.

Of course, you can never get the number to zero, but Trump’s acknowledgment gave them something to pounce on and smear him with.

The first question Muir shared from their interview was fair enough. “How do you save livelihoods, without risking more lives?” Trump responded by saying the biggest decision he’s ever had to make was closing the country and he was putting just as much thought into reopening.

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Citing a comment by Dr. Anthony Fauci of the Coronavirus Task Force, Muir wanted to know, how much death and suffering was Trump willing to accept to reopen the economy:

I want to ask you about what Dr. Fauci said last night about the reopening of the country. He said, “it’s the balance of something that’s a very difficult choice. How many deaths and how much suffering are you willing to accept to get back where you want to be?” Do you see it that way? Do you believe that’s the reality we’re facing that — that lives will be lost to reopen the country?

“It’s possible there will be some because you won’t be locked into an apartment or a house or whatever it is,” Trump said, acknowledging the reality of things. “But at the same time, we’re going to practice social distancing, we’re going to be washing hands, we’re going to be doing a lot of the things that we’ve learned to do over the last period of time.”

That was all ABC needed to spin the narrative that the President was fine with sacrificing lives, as long as the economy was fine.

After sharing a portion of the interview, Muir brought on anti-Trump White House correspondent Cecilia Vega and declared: “And first Cecilia, the President, you heard there acknowledging the potential cost in lives as he tries to reopen the country. That was significant from the President today.”

Vega’s response was vile. As if Trump had said he didn’t care about their lives at all, she called it a “pretty striking admission” and added: “Just think about it, he says that they’re still going to move ahead with reopening the country, but that there will indeed be lives lost. Look, he’s called this, in the past, the most difficult decision of his presidency. When to make this decision and how to make this design of when to reopen the country.”

To back up her suggestion, Vega argued that “his administration and the President himself are laser-focused on the economy right now.” She also argued that Trump had put the responsibility for lost lives on governors, so they wouldn’t be on his hands. “Really David, right now the onus is on the states and on the governors when and how to decide and that’s exactly where the White House wants this,” she proclaimed.

If you have a pain in your neck, that’s from the intense narrative-whiplash the liberal media have been pulling on whose authority it was to shut down and reopen economies.

In the beginning, the liberal media decried Trump for not unilaterally closing the country (no governors involved), then they decried him for saying he had the authority to reopen unilaterally (no governors involved). Now, they’re saying Trump giving the authority to governors was some kind of blame-shifting plot. You can’t make this up.

The transcript is below, click “expand” to read:

ABC’s World News Tonight
May 5, 2020
6:32:54 p.m. Eastern

(…)

DAVID MUIR: I want to start with reopening the country. I know this is your first trip back out into the country —

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yes.

MUIR: — in quite some time. And you’ve said that “The decision to open the economy is the biggest decision I’ve ever had to make.” How do you — and I suppose this is the central question — how do you save livelihoods, without risking more lives?

TRUMP: Well, I think actually the decision to close the country was the biggest decision I’ve ever had to make, and I’ve said that very loud and clear. I mean, we had the greatest economy in history, in the history of the world, not only our economy, it was our greatest economy. Best employment numbers, best numbers in every single way.

And they said, sir, we have to close the country. I said, what are you talking about? Close the country? Because nobody’s ever heard of such a thing. And we saved millions of lives by doing it and by putting the ban on China very early, it was a big thing. But the biggest decision I’ve ever had to make is closing the country, and certainly, this is now also a big decision but the people want to go back to work.

MUIR: I want to ask you about what Dr. Fauci said last night about the reopening of the country. He said, “it’s the balance of something that’s a very difficult choice. How many deaths and how much suffering are you willing to accept to get back where you want to be?” Do you see it that way? Do you believe that’s the reality we’re facing that — that lives will be lost to reopen the country?

TRUMP: It’s possible there will be some because you won’t be locked into an apartment or a house or whatever it is, but at the same time, we’re going to practice social distancing, we’re going to be washing hands, we’re going to be doing a lot of the things that we’ve learned to do over the last period of time.

And we have to get our country back. You know, people are dying the other way too. When you look at what’s happened with drugs. It goes up. When you look at suicides, I mean take a look at what’s going on. People are losing their jobs. We have to bring it back and that’s what we’re doing.

(…)

6:46:15 p.m. Eastern

MUIR: And so, I want to bring in our senior White House correspondent, Cecilia Vega, in Washington tonight. And first Cecilia, the President, you heard there acknowledging the potential cost in lives as he tries to reopen the country. That was significant from the President today.

CECILIA VEGA: Yeah, David. This is a pretty striking admission. Just think about it, he says that they’re still going to move ahead with reopening the country, but that there will indeed be lives lost. Look, he’s called this, in the past, the most difficult decision of his presidency. When to make this decision and how to make this design of when to reopen the country.

But look, his administration and the President himself are laser-focused on the economy right now. At the same time, he has left this decision up to the governors. Really David, right now the onus is on the states and on the governors when and how to decide and that’s exactly where the White House wants this.

MUIR: And in the meantime, Cecilia. The President’s team confirming to us here, late today that the Coronavirus Task Force that we’ve all become familiar with, the scientists there behind him, even in the middle of the crisis, could actually be winding down?

VEGA: Yeah, just a few minutes ago, David, the President defended that decision. He says, “doctors are still going to be involved. But it seems, as you say, the task force is winding down. Of course, that was the task force led by the Vice President, with doctors Birx and Fauci; even as these cases continue to rise, David, in some parts of the country. A pretty striking development.

MUIR: Cecilia Vega with us tonight, as well. Cecilia, thank you.