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CBS’s Scott Pelley Fact-Checks Mike Bloomberg On Trump Coronavirus Comment

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CBS host Scott Pelley fact-checked Democratic presidential candidate Mike Bloomberg on air after the former New York City mayor tried to claim that President Donald Trump described the coronavirus outbreak as a “hoax.”

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“I find it incomprehensible that the president would do something as inane as calling it a ‘hoax’ which he did last night in South Carolina,” Bloomberg said when Pelley introduced the topic during a “60 Minutes” interview set to run Sunday evening.

“He said that the Democrats making so much of it is a Democratic hoax, not that the virus is a hoax,” Pelley responded.

Not seeming to understand what the CBS host was getting at, Bloomberg pressed on.

“This is up to the scientists and the doctors as to whether there is a problem,” he continued. “They all, around the world, say that it is in some places, and has enormous potential to become one elsewhere. And it is just ignorant and irresponsible to not stand up and be the leader and say, ‘We don’t know, but we have to prepare for the fact that, if it is, we have the medicines and the structure and the knowledge to deal with it.'” (RELATED: ‘You’re A F**king Fascist!’ — Second Amendment Activists Heckle Mike Bloomberg In Virginia)

Despite the fact that the president was actually using the word “hoax” to criticize Democrats for how they are reacting to his administration’s coronavirus response during his February 28 rally in South Carolina, Politico published an article that claimed he called the virus itself a “hoax.” The article was fact-checked by the Daily Caller’s own “Check Your Fact” division, and was later even labeled as “false information” by Facebook’s fact-checkers.