In a move that impressed many—and left others wanting more—ABC reporter Jon Karl called out the President's lies during a white house press briefing.
Trump was in the middle of a rant criticizing the media for "bad reporting out there" when Karl spoke up.
This was far from the first instance of Trump bashing mainstream media during a speech. His definition of "bad reporting" usually seemed to be any story which doesn't sing his praises, whether he has done anything praiseworthy or not.
Jon Karl had evidently had enough of sitting quietly and being bashed for doing his job properly and reporting the truth.
"You people aren't satisfied. So let's say we had 350 million people in the United States. Let's say. And if we gave every one of those people a test—10 times. So you give 350 people a test 10 times."
"The fake news media would say, 'Where's the 11th time? He didn't do his job. Trump didn't do his job.' Because you have a lot of bad reporting out there. It is very sad."
After a few minutes of this abuse from Trump towards the news media, Karl spoke up, interrupting him with a raised voice.
"That's not true."
Trump immediately insulted Karl personally, and quickly tried to change the subject.
"And you're one of the leaders of the bad reporting... Okay let's get onto another subject. I wanted that to be cleared up."
He wasn't successful, however, as he immediately launched into telling Karl how to do his job.
"You ought to get the news accurately. You ought to write it—If you take a look at what you wrote about the ventilators..."
"And when we became the king of ventilators, we're making different factories all over ventilators by the thousands."
Karl could briefly be seen trying not to laugh while Trump talked about the US being "the king of ventilators," but he remained silent during this part of the speech.
Trump went on to cite a recent trip by Vice President Mike Pence where he visited a GE Healthcare ventilator manufacturing facility in Madison, Wisconsin.
Pence saw that the company was greatly ramping up production of the devices. Trump saw this as proof that the administration is handling the crisis well.
"Nobody thought this could be done, the fake news was very unhappy that it was done, but you guys don't ask me about ventilators anymore."
Karl quickly retorted:
"Who's unhappy about ventilators?"
A lot of Twitter users were very appreciative of Karl's efforts to make the truth known, but some called for further action.
@conetable_60/Twitter
Karl explained the outburst in an interview with Politics and Prose about his new book, Front Row at the Trump Show.
"I felt it was entirely appropriate. ... You can't just say stuff that is completely and totally false."
Karl's bookFront Row at the Trump Show is available here.
@RepClayHiggins/X
