LA Times blasted for bizarre piece contrasting Trump COVID infection with Reagan assassination attempt

The Los Angeles Times received intense backlash Friday over an article linking President Trump's battle against the coronavirus to an assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan nearly 40 years ago.

"When Reagan was shot, country rallied around, but he hadn’t spent months downplaying assassins," read the headline of the story by Times reporter Del Quentin Wilber.

"When President Ronald Reagan was shot and nearly killed by a would-be assassin, the country rallied around him. But he also hadn’t spent eight months downplaying the threat of deranged gunmen," the piece began. "With President Trump’s announcement that he and his wife had tested positive for coronavirus, I thought back to the last time the country confronted a major presidential health scare and what we might learn from those dramatic few days in the spring of 1981."

Wilber explained that following Reagan's recovery from the wounds inflicted by gunman John Hinckley Jr., he "emerged from the ordeal with a much stronger bond with the public, one that stayed with him through the rest of his presidency.

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"Whether Trump can gain similar sympathy is very much in doubt — not only because of the events leading up to his illness, but also the sharp differences between the personalities of the two men, which can be seen by their immediate reactions to their health crises," Wilber continued. "Such a moment almost surely could not happen today — and not only because the president is in quarantine, the victim of a pandemic he has spent months minimizing and wishing away.

"If he is well enough, we can ponder whether Trump will act with humility, dignity and grace, like Reagan did," the story continued. "Can we expect self-deprecating tweets from his sickbed that might help cement a bond between a suffering president and the electorate? ... Do we expect Trump to evolve, to empathize more with those who caught the virus? To date, there’s little evidence of that, but the example of Reagan might stand Trump and his White House in good stead."

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The Times shared the report on Twitter Friday evening, hours after Trump was taken to Walter Reed Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.

"This is shameful. America is better than this ..." Rep Jim Banks, R-Indiana, reacted.

"I thought this was like an opinion piece but it's a news story? Just an insane way to frame this," journalist Yashar Ali tweeted. "Other publications did stuff like 'After months of downplaying Coronavirus threat ...' but they didn't involve presidential assassinations,"

Conservative commentator Stephen Miller mocked the paper by tweeting: "The country rallied around JFK but he also didn’t spend months downplaying the threat of open air convertibles -@latimes."

The Los Angeles Times did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment.

The paper wasn't the only news outlet to pile on the president following his diagnosis. CNN anchor Jake Tapper shamed Trump and his administration Friday afternoon for not following CDC guidance regarding social distancing and wearing masks at various events throughout the pandemic.

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"We all sincerely wish the best for everyone at the White House battling this cruel and potentially deadly disease, but they continue to put others at risk not only by setting bad examples," Tapper said, "not only by failing in the pandemic response but now, quite literally, as carriers of the virus, exposing not just fellow officials and senators or journalists or donors but exposing the flight crews of Air Force One and Marine One, members of the military, or waiters and support staff at Bedminster in New Jersey.

"Make no mistake, this was not just reckless behavior, this was a demonstration of a wanton disregard for human life. President Trump, now in quarantine, has become a symbol of his own failures."