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.
National Review trash. Never accept and defend against their premise.
My advice: ignore these a holes. Look forward not back.
Doesn’t matter to them and their stubbornness. If any COVID-19 deaths happened, it happens because Trump is anti science. Never mind the 30-40K deaths from antibiotic resistant bacterial diseases, never mind the pneumonia deaths attributed to flu. That’s irrational hatred.
That was on Jan. 22, before the novel corona virus really took off. By the middle of February it was becoming clear China was covering up how bad it was. Like I said, no one every expected a country to cover up a epidemic like this.
>> Congress was informed by the president on February 4
Do you recall if coronavirus was directly mentioned? I don’t recall.
29 January 2020: Coronavirus? Johns Hopkins doctor says you’re more likely to get the flu
31 January 2020: Pelosi argues Trump 'cannot be acquitted,' suggests defense team should be disbarred.
31 January 2020: Trump administration expands travel ban to include six more countries
31 January 2020: Coronavirus declared public health emergency in US
1 February 2020: Democrats Vow Trump Probes to Go On After Impeachment Trial Ends
1 February 2020: Top Democrats fume after Trump expands travel ban to six new countries
1 February 2020: Pentagon to prepare Coronavirus quarantine housing for 1,000 people
2 February 2020: WATCH: Omar Trashes the U.S. for Not Living Up to Her 'American Dream'
5 February 2020: Video: Pelosi’s Mumbling During Trump’s SOTU Speech Are Bizarre, Prompt Questions About Her Mental Health
5 February 2020: Washington Post Editor Irked by Rush Limbaugh's Medal of Freedom Award
5 February 2020: New Video Shows Pelosi Practicing Ripping Up Trump’s State Of The Union Speech
yes, if you google coronavirus and state of the union you will find it.
Really? If we didn’t expect that of China, we haven’t been paying attention. (And of course we should have had our own sources tracking it there as well.)
China, the WHO and the CDC/NIH are the real culprits IMO, with Trump getting a thin slice from the blame pie too.
Yep, we’re never going to shut the country down just because somebody sneezes. We didn’t have the data because of China. They did the entire world a disservice. Now they’re trying to profit from it.
I’m no longer going to buy anything made in China. We should all do the same - in an effort to take down the CCP that is AT WAR with us.
My question is, if Trump failed to see the significance of the virus, why didn’t one leader from any of the other foreign countries see the warning and warn the world of the danger?
What is that?
Commies being commies. Anybody who trust commies is a fool.
Because China has been buying everything they can,
including politicians and corporate leadership
Exactly. When Trump gave that warning in the SOTU, the world should have took notice.
These are the words in President Trump’s SOTU:
“Protecting Americans’ health also means fighting infectious diseases. We are coordinating with the Chinese government and working closely together on the coronavirus outbreak in China. My administration will take all necessary steps to safeguard our citizens from this threat.”
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