Trump administration trade adviser Peter Navarro repeatedly referred to COVID-19 as the "China virus" during an interview with NBC's Chuck Todd on Sunday.
During an appearance on Meet the Press, Todd asked Navarro if he had a "good explanation" for why the national stockpiles were not replenished by the Trump administration before the current pandemic.
"I'm not looking in the rear-view mirror right now, Chuck," Navarro insisted. "This president is just looking straight ahead towards what's going to be a really strong future."
When Todd wondered why the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) had not held a briefing in over a month, Navarro pivoted to attack China.
"The fact of the matter is, and what President Trump realized early on, is that if you lock people down, you may save lives directly from the China virus, but you indirectly are going to kill a lot more people," Navarro opined. "So if you contrast like this complete lockdown where some of the people in the medical community want to just run and hide until the virus is extinguished, that's not going to not only take a huge toll on the American economy, it's going to kill many more people than the virus, the China virus, ever would."
Instead of noting that there is no such thing as "the China virus," Todd moved on to the next question.
