CNN was slammed on social media Friday after publishing an analysis by national political writer Brandon Tensley that complained about the lack of diversity in President Trump’s new task force to combat the fast-spreading coronavirus.
A CNN tweet declaring, “Coronavirus task force another example of Trump administration’s lack of diversity,” fetched only 800 retweets but amassed a whopping 15,000 replies as of this writing. It linked to Mr. Tensley’s analysis that focused on photos tweeted out by Mr. Trump that showed members of the task force, who appeared to be predominantly white and male.
“Who are these experts?” Mr. Tensley asked in his piece. “They’re largely the same sorts of white men (and a couple women on the sidelines) who’ve dominated the Trump administration from the very beginning.”
The writer went on to argue that the experts photographed exhibited the “kinds of people the administration deems worthy of holding power — and even being in close proximity to it.” He added that Mr. Trump mainly surrounds himself with white males because they are “mirror images” of himself.
Conservatives seized on the article as the latest example of Trump derangement syndrome.
??? It never ends people… it never ends. https://t.co/P2ZHuAu90T
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 31, 2020
And what exactly does race have to do with fighting a deadly virus?
Also, as long as @CNN wants to play quota games: why does the network have a grand total of 1 minority anchor across all the weekday shows? And, not one Hispanic? Colorless News Network? https://t.co/ES27wJrik0
— Steve Cortes (@CortesSteve) January 31, 2020
So just to get this straight, CNN is objecting to a task force designed to stop an epidemic by focusing on…ethnic diversity? https://t.co/PaXlJz8LNm
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) January 31, 2020
Your Trump hatred at CNN is a real cancer to our body politic. This means absolutely nothing in terms of being able to stop a deadly virus. I’m pretty sure the #coronavirus doesn’t care that this room isn’t “diverse”
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) January 30, 2020
