Peter Navarro was on Sunday abruptly cut from his CNN interview after a heated debate over Donald Trump 'downplaying' the threat of the coronavirus. 

The president's aide told Jake Tapper: 'You just don't want to listen, Jake', adding: 'This is not fair, Jake. You're constantly interrupting me and you're not letting me talk.' He then accused Tapper of 'cherry picking'. 

State of the Union host Tapper had asked Navarro why Trump 'acknowledged to Bob Woodward behind closed doors coronavirus was five times deadlier than the flu, misleading the American people'. He added: 'Why wasn't he honest?'

Navarro told Tapper: 'I am answering your question. You just don't like the answer.'

He added: 'The answer is in February all the way through the middle of March when the world health organization finally said there was a pandemic and China was hiding the information, finally, that's when we knew that there was a pandemic. 

'And you know what, Jake, we were at that point prepared for the worst. In February we were moving mountains on PPE, therapeutics, testing and vaccines so that in the time that we needed those things we got those things.'