Trump mocked Fox's Peter Doocy for asking him when it was going to be safe to eat lettuce again, because apparently concerns about public health are just hilarious now:
President Donald Trump laughed off a question about the ongoing cyclospora outbreak that was asked by Fox News senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy on Friday.
It was the president's first public response to the outbreak that has sickened at least 4,173 people, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with 308 hospitalized. Thousands more cases are under review by the CDC.
State officials report case numbers that are much higher, because many states include both confirmed and probable cases. For example, Michigan, the hardest hit state, has reported 8,176 cases. [...]
The White House previously said it has a handle on the outbreak, but Trump had not spoken about it until Friday.
Here's the exchange with Doocy and Trump with Trump laughing off the question:
DOOCY: A different story, not Iran. There's this nasty parasite that is giving people in nine states explosive diarrhea. When is it going to be safe to eat lettuce again?
TRUMP: I don't know. I haven't thought about it. It's the first time I've been asked that question.
Are you eating lettuce recently?
DOOCY: I should always have more lettuce.
TRUMP: You want to get the hell out of here, Peter. No, it's a very interesting question from you. I didn't think you'd ask that kind of a question. Nobody wants to ask that question, but it's exciting.
DOOCY: There's this food coming in, I guess, from Mexico. It's tainted. It's making a lot of people sick.
That is the CDC's terminology.
TRUMP: I think what we're going to do is we're going to put a major tariff on Mexico because of the lettuce. And we're going to put a big tariff on Canada because of the smoke. All right.
We're going to come. Which would you have? The lettuce or the smoke? I think I'll take the smoke.
DOOCY: Yes, the smoke wrecks my daughter's swim meet.
TRUMP: Well, it's closed up a lot of country. I've told Canada they have to do something about it. You know, we've never had this problem.
All of a sudden, we have this problem with Canada. So we'll have to talk to them about that.
I guess Trump doesn't eat much lettuce with that horrible diet of his, and we all know if something doesn't affect him directly, he couldn't care less.
