tRump.

Amid ongoing concerns over the virus and with the stock market—long one Trump's preferred yardsticks for his performance—in free-fall, Trump and his allies have sought to downplay the severity of the global coronavirus outbreak and frame news coverage of the illness as an attack on the administration.

In an appearance at the Conservative Political Action Committee Friday, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney described the media coverage devoted to the coronavirus as an attempt to destroy Trump. "The reason you’re seeing so much attention to it today is that they think this is going to be the thing that brings down the president," said Mulvaney. "That’s what this is all about." Earlier in the week, newly-minted Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient Rush Limbaugh falsely dismissed the illness as a variant of the "common cold."

Aaron Rupar