VIDEO: President Trump castigates Jim Acosta for calling coronavirus media briefings 'happy talk'

President Donald Trump berated CNN reporter Jim Acosta again at his coronavirus task force media briefing for calling the daily updates 'happy talk' about the pandemic.

The president denied Acosta's statements that there were shortages of medical equipment to address the coronavirus pandemic.

"Mr. President, we hear from a lot of people who see these briefings as sort of 'happy talk' briefings," said Acosta.

"No happy talk today!" Trump replied.

"You, and some of the officials paint a rosy picture of what is happening around the country. If you look at some of these questions. Do we have enough masks, no. Do we have enough tests, no. Do we have enough PPE, no. Do we have enough medical equipment," continued Acosta.

"Why would you say no?" Trump interrupted. "I think the answer is yes. Who said no to that?"

"We hear from doctors, we hear from health experts," continued Acosta.

"You said, do we have enough masks? Yes," answered the president. "Do we have enough tests? Yes. Plus we're developing new tests. Do we have enough ventilators? Yes. Do we have enough hospital beds? Yes. We built 20,000 hospital beds. We have enough hospital beds. Go ahead, Jim, let's go."

"What do you say to, I mean you watch the coverage, you're watching a lot of the coverage," Acosta said.

"You know what I say, well a lot of it is fake news," Trump interrupted.

"It's not fake news," Acosta said. "When the doctors and the medical experts come on our air and say we don't have enough tests, we don't have enough masks."

The president accused Acosta and CNN of cherry picking their guests and defended his administration's response, saying that many governors have praised him for his actions.

"This is not happy talk," said Trump. "Maybe it's happy talk for you, it's not happy talk for me. We're talking about death."

The president went on to say that had he not shut down the economy that there could have been as many as 2 million deaths.

"There's no happy talk, Jim," he added, "this is the real deal."

Some medical professionals are taking to social media to decry the lack of medical equipment in their fight against coronavirus. In some instances, however, the federal government has been able to partner with private companies to speed up manufacture and delivery of that equipment.

Complicating the issue is that the mainstream media has been caught publicizing unvetted claims and deceptive imagery that might mislead the public about the extent of the shortages.

Here's the video of the fiery interaction:

Trump lashes out at CNN's Acosta: 'I don't believe you're that bad of a guy'www.youtube.com