It's as if some sanity has returned, at least a little.

For all the sludge of lies about President Trump and his preparations for the coronavirus, modeled in part on the Democrats' Katrina template, which damaged President Bush, Jake Tapper of all people stepped in and shut leftist Rep. Ted Lieu up.

In his questions for @SecPompeo, Rep. @tedlieu said Mick "Mulvaney told the Conservative Political Action Conference that the coronavirus was the hoax of the day."

That's not what Mulvaney said.

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— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) February 28, 2020

This was an unexpectedly welcome smackdown, given that the press and its Democrat allies have gone all in to create a truly phony narrative suggesting that President Trump considers the coronavirus outbreak "a hoax."  When President Trump, and his lieutenants such as acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, have used the term, they explicitly stated that the Democratic claims that Trump was either unprepared or doing nothing about coronavirus were the hoax.  Which they were.

One example, linked on the front page of the new leftist Drudge Report as "HOAX," came in a string of headlines below the header "Trump plays down risks," suggesting that Trump thought the coronavirus itself, rather than the Democrats' false narrative, was the problem.

Here's another narrative-infused lying headline from Politico:

Trump rallies his base to treat coronavirus as a 'hoax'

Can you even believe they ran that drivel?

This is why Tapper's stinkeye to the whole matter was so welcome.

It's hard to say what his motivation might be, given that he's smacking down a dishonest Democrat mouthing a phony narrative he's hoping repetition will make a real one.

It's possible he's dedicated to the truth — in the old days, he used to call out President Obama's and President Clinton's lies all the time.  Even more likely, he's seen this show before and knows how Democrats can puff a lie — as they did with the Russian collusion hoax, the Trump stole the election hoax, the Ukraine impeachment fiasco...and he know how such heaps of frequently repeated lie turn out: in a cascade of crashes for the Democrats.  Maybe he's tired of being their mouthpiece, given how badly these things all turn out in the end for Democrats.  Maybe he has a low threshold for losing causes, as noted here.

He's seen this Democrat movie before and knows how it will end.

Regardless of the real reason, it's good stuff that someone has finally called it out, taking that first step to nip this mendacious narrative in the bud.

Photo illustration by Monica Showalter with use of YouTube screen shots.