Reporter Apologizes to Trump for Asking a Question With Bogus Statistic on Testing

On a number of occasions, President Trump has called on the media to apologize for inaccurate reporting. On Tuesday, a reporter from Yahoo News actually did apologize to Trump for asking him a question about coronavirus testing that was based on a false statistic.

“Mr. President, overall, South Korea has done five times more tests than the U.S. per capita,” Yahoo News reporter Hunter Walker asked the president.

“I don’t think that’s true,” Trump responded.

“That is true,” Walker insisted.

Dr. Deborah Birx later provided the correct statistic.

“South Korea’s testing was 11 per 100,000 [people], and we are at 17 per 100,000,” Birx noted.

“Are you going to apologize, Yahoo?” Trump asked.

“If that’s correct—” Walker started to say, but Trump kept going.

“That’s why you’re Yahoo and nobody knows who the hell you are. That’s why nobody knows who you are, including me,” Trump said. “You ought to get your facts right.”

Hunter Walker later looked into the statistics and found that Trump was, indeed, correct, and unlike most in the media, did the right thing and apologized.

“We have passed South Korea in the number of tests conducted per capita. I misread the mobile version of this chart and am sorry about that @realDonaldTrump.” Walker tweeted

We have passed South Korea in the number of tests conducted per capita. I misread the mobile version of this chart and am sorry about that @realDonaldTrump . Our infection rate is far higher though as I noted.

— Hunter Walker (@hunterw) April 28, 2020

Now we just need the rest of the media to apologize for their biased reporting.

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Matt Margolis is the author of Trumping Obama: How President Trump Saved Us From Barack Obama’s Legacy and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis

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