Democrats are doing everything in their power to make it look as though Donald Trump somehow mismanaged the response to the coronavirus.
Vice President Pence has started to go on the offensive, though, hitting China hard for a lack of transparency that led to the delayed response by the CDC.
Where Does the Blame Lie?
Is there any blame or are Democrats just throwing darts in the hope of hurting President Trump’s chances of re-election?
If I honestly thought the Trump administration had mismanaged this, I would say something, but I don’t think that has been the case.
I think the media has done a rather disgusting job of painting optimism as downplaying the severity of the virus.
The only real hard question I would have for the Trump administration is if they knew the stockpiles were low when they took over, why was there no effort to replenish them?
On that same note, though, Joe Biden needs to be hit hard on why the Obama administration had six years to replenish and never did so, as they clearly knew they had depleted the stockpiles in 2009-10.
From what I have been able to find, the only member of Congress that seemed remotely worried about the coronavirus was Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR).
His first documented concern over the virus was January 22, 2020, which is by far the earliest I have been able to find for any member in the House or Senate.
SPN has reached out to Cotton for an interview, so, hopefully, we can get further insight. Regardless, there will be a report on this very soon even if we do not get a response from him.
Meanwhile, with the media trying to place the blame on Trump for every American’s death, Vice President Pence is starting to throw some shade on China, for obvious reasons, placing the blame on China for the CDC’s delayed response.
Still Evaluating in January
The delay of information from China hurt everyone, but it was especially damaging to our efforts to react.
On this, Pence stated, “I will be very candid with you and say that in mid-January the CDC was still assessing that the risk of the coronavirus to the American people was low.
“The very first case, which was someone who had been in China — in late January around the 20th day of January.
He added, “The reality is that China’s been more transparent with respect to the coronavirus than certainly they were for other infectious diseases over the last 15 years.
“But what appears evident now is long before the world learned in December, China was dealing with this, maybe as much as a month earlier than that.”
Many outlets on both the left and right portrayed this as Pence placing blame on the CDC, but that is far from what he was doing.
His point was that the CDC, based on the information they had at the time, still considered the virus a low-risk for most Americans.
The White House took that exact approach when it was approached about Pence placing blame on the CDC.
The statement read, “The CDC has been a major contributor to the Task Force and the whole-of-government response to the coronavirus outbreak.
“Vice President Pence has never cast blame on the CDC or any agency involved in the response efforts, and that did not change today.”
Downplaying or Optimism
The media has continued to say that Trump downplayed this pandemic and that downplaying is what costs Americans their lives.
That is simply not true.
Yes, Trump has compared this to the flu, but that was a narrative experts were even pushing and continue to push.
It is far deadlier than the regular flu, but it is a form of viral infection that is ONLY extremely deadly now because we don’t have a treatment.
Trump’s statement that “We’ll essentially have a flu shot for this in a fairly quick manner” is true, because we will, but in the meantime, this is deadly simply because researchers have yet to find a treatment for it.
Trump has also stated that this will eventually “go away,” which is, while overly optimistic, essentially true.
Most experts believe this will tail off naturally as flu season plays out and once we do have a treatment and vaccine, it will more or less be tamed.
Again, and I have said this from the very outset, I don’t believe Trump ever downplayed the severity of the virus and he surely would not have shut down travel from China and Europe if he was downplaying it.
You might be able to say he was overly optimistic, but if he wasn’t, the media would say he was creating panic, so he was in a no-win situation.
Eventually, the truth will all come out in terms of timelines and I think we will find out that if anything, considering the information we had at the time, Trump was making very aggressive moves… moves that probably saved lives, but the Dems and the media will NEVER give him credit for that.
If they can find a single misstep, they will focus on that and try to take him out over it, that I guarantee.
Source: CNN
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