During the now-daily (Wuhan) Coronavirus Task Force press conference, President Trump invited a number of CEOs (Honeywell, Jockey, United Technologies, and Procter and Gamble) to the podium to speak about their assistance in the production of face masks, ventilators, tests, and more. Among them was Mike Lindell, CEO of My Pillow (disclosure: My Pillow has advertised on my nationally syndicated radio program), whom Trump introduced as “my friend” before Lindell briefly addressed the socially-distant media.

The reaction was swift:

Twitchy has a massive list of Blue Checks bashing American companies for voluntarily assisting during a pandemic.

First the media complains that Trump isn’t giving doctors and nurses N95 masks, gowns, gloves, tests, etc. (despite this Democrat not ordering supplies until March 6th and this Democrat keeping a stockpile of ventilators in a warehouse somewhere) then they complain when a private company steps up, after spending the last three weeks shifting the majority of their production line to mask-making with the goal of hitting 100,000 masks per week.

This is less about media’s obsessive bias with all things Trump and more about the socialism so many of them championed in their coverage, which is getting beaten all to hell with these optics. You wanted the national debate on socialism vs. capitalism? Well here you have it, except this isn’t some snoot who’s never made payroll before extolling the pretend-virtues of socialism while looking down their monitor at Flyover Nation — television cameras are funneling into Americans’s homes story after story of private business owners volunteering to help their nation during a time of crisis. Save your Twitter anecdotes, these are actual people who employ other people who are stepping up in ways the government could never hope to mimic. These “evil” CEOs discussing how they’re keeping their employees working, keeping them paid, all while shifting production for the nation they love dispels the “evil corporations” narrative spit so often by the likes of Bernie Sanders and AOC. Socialists assume everyone is as they are: unwilling to help during a time of crisis unless made to do so by the federal government. It’s disproven in a stunning fashion with the scores of business owners Trump has brought before the mic. No government compelled these businesses (except for GM who Trump forced via the Defense Production Act. I assume it was GM’s way to thank the taxpayers who bailed them out. Does this mean we can stop pretending that the Chevy Volt didn’t look like a child’s car drawing brought to life?). This pandemic highlights a terrifying fact that progressives don’t want to admit: statism caused this pandemic to spread as fast as it did and statism is why our response wasn’t as fast out of the blocks as we would have liked.

It’s why the press has taken to fear-mongering about the economy, why they’ve taken to seizing on every syllable True utters at these task force conferences and then omitting half of what he said to fill whatever narrative they’ve preloaded. Americans aren’t buying it anymore, as evidenced by his rising poll numbers. Between stunts like this and running defense for communist China, it’s no wonder people no longer trust the media — a horrible problem to have during a pandemic. By the way — have any of these media folks offered to help? Would they refuse a My Pillow face mask if, truly heaven forbid, they were to fall ill with this awful virus or care for someone who contracted it?

 

[MORE: I interviewed Lindell a year ago about his story of struggle and grace.]

(An earlier version of this story included N95 masks in place of regular face masks. Apologies for the error.)