Photo: Weibo

A video of Donald McNeil Jr, a senior reporter at the New York Times, criticizing US President Donald Trump's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and calling for the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to quit, went viral on Chinese social media with many netizens praising the reporter's candor and objecting to the New York Times' criticism of him.

"It is the president's fault. It is not China's fault," McNeil said during the interview on CNN. "We fiddled around for two months," he said, with Trump's incompetent leadership and the CDC director repeatedly ignoring warnings from WHO and China, the US was now in a "headless chicken" phase and only had itself to blame.

"What we call a lockdown in this country, to China, is an absolute joke."

The New York Times responded to McNeil's remarks, saying that the reporter "went too far. "His editors have discussed the issue with him," and "his job is to report the facts and not to offer his own opinions," according to the newspaper.

Some netizens commented that instead of a president who knows nothing about the virus and promotes himself, the US needs more sincere reporters and experts to offer their expertise on the country's fight against the coronavirus considering the worsening situation.

This was not the first time that Chinese netizens had seen McNeil interviewed in the US media. On March 17, in response to an NBC anchor's question on China's anti-virus measures lacking the West's freedom, McNeil said that without life, there is no way to talk about freedom and the right to pursue happiness.

He also said in an interview with NPR on April 29 that China's quarantine measures may save 10 million lives.