Coronavirus conspiracy.. The insanity......

Trump backers see a coronavirus conspiracy

CDC official who raised fears turns out to be Rod Rosenstein’s sister, setting off MAGA-world alarms.

By BEN SCHRECKINGER and ALICE MIRANDA OLLSTEIN

Some supporters of President Donald Trump see a threat bigger than the spread of a highly contagious novel coronavirus: a conspiracy by deep state actors to use the virus against the president.

One key piece of evidence fueling their theory: An official from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention making public statements on the outbreak is the sister of Rod Rosenstein, the former deputy attorney general who oversaw the Mueller probe and, according to a disputed report, once discussed removing Trump from office.

Dr. Nancy Messonnier, head of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases — who got a shoutout from her brother for attending his 2017 confirmation hearing — warned Americans in a Tuesday media briefing that an outbreak in the U.S. is inevitable.

Messonnier’s comments got widespread attention, sparking calls for further actions by the administration, which had long struck a more reassuring note. The furor appeared to catch Trump flat-footed while en route back from his summit with the Indian prime minister, during which he had declared the outbreak "very well under control."

The likes of conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh and Jim Hoft, publisher of the Gateway Pundit, a conspiratorial, pro-Trump site, have seized on the sibling connection, as have a large number of anonymous Twitter accounts.

“Rod Rosenstein as we all know definitely worked to undermine the Trump administration, which is oddly exactly what his sister is doing by undermining the more logical and calm message the president’s team has issued on the virus,” conservative pundit Wayne Dupree charged in a Wednesday blog post.

Global financial markets have been sliding for several days over concerns about the fallout from the virus, a trend that threatens Trump’s rosy economic message as well as his political future.

Yet there is no evidence that federal health authorities are overstating the threat of coronavirus to prosecute a political vendetta against Trump, and some conservatives — even as they praised the administration’s response — rushed to defend Messonnier.

"I've heard people jumping on Nancy Messonnier because she told us the truth: that it's not a matter of if but when,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told reporters on Wednesday. “Isn't that what you want to hear instead of some pie in the sky?"

Trump — who rose to political prominence by promoting the false idea that Barack Obama was not born in the United States — has aired suspicions that mainstream media outlets are sensationalizing the virus and contributing to a plunging stock market. “Low Ratings Fake News MSDNC (Comcast) & @CNN are doing everything possible to make the Caronavirus look as bad as possible, including panicking markets, if possible,” he tweeted on Wednesday morning.

The tweet came after Limbaugh aired fears that the virus is being “weaponized” against Trump on his Monday radio program. He accused the “Drive-By Media” of overhyping the threat posed by the virus to tank financial markets.

“There’s nothing unusual about the coronavirus,” opined Limbaugh, who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Trump earlier this month. Limbaugh, who also compared the virus to the "common cold," followed up on Tuesday by seizing on the Messonnier-Rosenstein connection.

Other Trump supporters, meanwhile, have seized on the crisis to deflect blame to some of the president’s favorite targets: foreign governments and powerful global organizations.

In a Jan. 29 blog post, America First Policies, a pro-Trump nonprofit co-founded by Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, criticized the Chinese Communist Party and the World Health Organization for not doing enough to raise the alarm about the outbreak.

"The World Health Organization,” the group wrote, “is a case study of how the Chinese Communist Party infects supposedly apolitical institutions.”