Trump briefing notes show he replaced ‘coronavirus’ with ‘Chinese virus’ in Sharpie

President Trump won’t budge on labeling the COVID-19 coronavirus the “Chinese virus,” apparently even to the point of altering his own White House notes.

After Trump’s White House briefing on Thursday, during which he called the novel coronavirus “the Chinese virus” within 45 seconds of taking the podium, The Washington Post‘s Jabin Botsford shared a photo showing that the notes Trump was reading from in one section included “corona virus” crossed out to be replaced with “Chinese virus,” presumably by Trump himself.

Trump has repeatedly doubled down on labeling of the coronavirus the “Chinese virus” because it originated in Wuhan, even as the World Health Organization has urged against attaching “locations or ethnicity to the disease,” saying that “this is not a ‘Wuhan Virus,’ ‘Chinese Virus’ or ‘Asian Virus'” and “the official name for the disease was deliberately chosen to avoid stigmatization.”

New York Magazine‘s Josh Barro argued Thursday the photo of Trump’s notes showed that “they’re using the term ‘the coronavirus’ internally like everyone else and are throwing this up publicly because they would rather have an argument about political correctness than discuss the response itself.”

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