Posted on 04/02/2020 2:02:28 PM PDT by Ennis85
Vice President Mike Pence defended President Trump’s handling of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic Wednesday, claiming that “I don’t believe the president has ever belittled the threat of the coronavirus” in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.
Despite banning Chinese nationals from entering the country and declaring a public health emergency at the end of January, Trump and his administration have sent mixed signals on the virus.
The president has implied that the outbreak was similar in potency to the common flu and telling CNBC in January that “we have it totally under control.” In February, he claimed that, “within a couple of days,” the U.S. number of cases “is going to be down to close to zero.” “That’s a pretty good job we’ve done,” Trump stated.
Then-acting White House chief-of-staff Mick Mulvaney also dismissed the possibility that the coronavirus was a serious threat while addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference in late February. “This is not Ebola. It’s not SARS. It’s not MERS,” he said, adding that the media’s hyper-attention was because “they think this is going to be the thing that brings down the president.”
The back-and-forth messaging has drawn criticism from fellow Republicans.
“He at times just says whatever comes to mind or tweets, then someone on TV is saying the opposite,” Maryland governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, the Washington Post. “It’s critically important that the message is straightforward and fact-based for the public.”
Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson said on his March 9 show that coronavirus “is definitely not just the flu.”
“People you trust, people you probably voted for, have spent weeks minimizing what is clearly a very serious problem,” Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson stated. “It’s just partisan politics,’ they say. ‘Calm down. In the end this was just like the flu and people die from that every year. Coronavirus will pass.’ We get it. But they’re wrong.”
While the mainstream media has also heavily scrutinized Trump’s response, numerous media outlets also explicitly downplayed the threat from the coronavirus throughout January and February.
Pence, who Trump appointed as head of the White House’s coronavirus task force in February, also suggested Wednesday that the outbreak could be contained by June if the White House’s new guidelines are followed.
“If all of us continue to do our part, and that is by some time in early June, we could well have the coronavirus largely behind us as a nation, reopen our country, put America back to work,” Pence stated.
Multiple attempts to close down borders, limit flights, etc. often balked initially by court orders, antagonistic politicians, and braying self interest groups. The Dems have such conveniently short memories regarding their own faults. All they need is a mirror to see plenty of blame.
Yeah, Trump screwed up initially, and admitted it, lots of people did, to a great degree because they were being lied to by the WHO, China, and incompetents in the CDC
I suppose I was hearing things when I heard Dr. Fauci downplay this.
Funny how nobody wanted Trump to listen to his experts then. But now?! Oh yeah, lockdown!!!
And what if Trump has screamed to the high heavens back then. National Review would be decrying how Trump started a panic.
“Claims”
Nope. No bias there.
““He at times just says whatever comes to mind or tweets”
This is true. Trump can be a loose cannon at times. Many like it as he is honest and just lets it all hang out. Not sure how that applies in this case.
I don’t see how someone makes a case that Trump downplayed covid-19 when he stopped allowing Chinese nationals to come into our country.
If Trump thought covid-19 was no big deal then why go to all that trouble? Just keep everything BAU.
All while fighting impeachment
Congress was informed by the president on February 4. Pelosi ripped up the speech calling it a pack of lies. The epidemic is on the Democrats.
We need to make sure that we never let off on this fact.
When the president stopped flights from China in late January, Biden said it was “racist.”
Trump was just repeating the info he received from the “experts” in the virology field. How on earth can the fault him for that, when that’s exactly what they demanded of him?
I hope the media and democrats end up in a world where they’re treated as unfairly as they’ve all treated Trump.
Has there ever been a successful general, coach, or business leader who didn’t encourage his people?
I don’t think ‘belittled’ is the correct term but Trump was definitely overly optimistic on what impact it would have. But what was he supposed to do? Scream “We’re dooooomed. Doomed I say” into the TV cameras from the very beginning?
In the bizarro world of the mainstream media words speak louder than actions
What difference does it make what he said in January? Would the Democrats have closed off flights from China and Europe when Trump did?
No they would’ve sat on their PC asses and patted themselves on the crotch
Yep. And this from the National Review.
What was once thought to be a conservative publication.
Hah!
Pelosi said it could be grounds for another impeachment.
Maybe when wolf is finished playing Jeopardy he can ask governor witless and the dim governor of Nevada questions about the Oxy drug bans
Both did the opposite of what the President did...which was the right thing to do.
Since the H1N1 flu pandemic began in April (FOUR MONTHS!!), millions of people in the United States have been infected, at least 20,000 have been hospitalized and more than 1,000 have died, said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.In fact, the Kaiser Family Foundation noted the emergency declaration in its newsletter in October 2009 and described what it does, including giving help to hospitals, triage aid, and ways to segregate the H1N1 patients from other patients:
President Barack Obama declared the H1N1 (swine) flu outbreak a national emergency, the Wall Street Journal reports. “The declaration, which Mr. Obama signed Friday, authorizes the administration to waive or modify certain federal requirements involving Medicare, Medicaid and health-privacy rules to speed treatment,” the newspaper writes (McKay/Simpson/Whalen, 10/26).SOURCE: Fact-Check: Obama Waited Until 'Millions' Infected and 1000 Dead in U.S. Before Declaring H1N1 National Emergency, by Victoria Taft, February 28, 2020, PJ Media.The national emergency declaration will “allow hospitals and governments on the local level to more rapidly prepare triage sites and procedures to handle any future surge in sick patients,” TIME writes. “A hospital in danger of being overrun by H1N1 patients would be allowed to segregate them in a separate site for treatment, which might slow the spread of the disease” (Walsh, 10/24).
“The declaration Saturday did not signify any unanticipated worsening in the United States of the H1N1 outbreak, officials said,” the New York Times reports. “It seemed likely, however, to increase concerns, disruptions and at times, panicky reactions, to a disease now affecting most parts of the world.” U.S. health officials on Friday said "more than" 1,000 Americans have died from H1N1 (Calmes/McNeil, 10/25).
In a second story, the New York Times examines growing confusion and anger among H1N1 vaccine-seekers in the U.S. Though the U.S. is currently experiencing an H1N1 vaccine shortage, health officials say current H1N1 shortages “are temporary.”
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