Why Trump Intentionally Misnames the Coronavirus
In President Donald Trump’s Oval Office address yesterday about the threats of the novel coronavirus, he went out of his way to label it a “foreign virus.”
“This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history,” Trump said, in words that betrayed the isolationist leanings of his chief speechwriter, Stephen Miller. The speech took a typically Miller-esque approach to the coronavirus pandemic: Blame foreigners, and close up U.S. borders.
The “foreign virus” line drew immediate criticism, including from CNN’s , who told Chris Cuomo following the address, “I think it is going to come across to a lot of Americans as smacking of xenophobia to use that kind, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, making a point of referring to the “Wuhan virus” or “.” The World Health Organization, in officially giving the disease caused by the virus the name COVID-19, sought to avoid just this type of geographic stigmatization.
