All
the Coronavirus Lies Pence Told in the Debate
And how we know
they’re bogus.
OCT 08, 20204:58 PM
In his Wednesday night debate with
Sen. Kamala Harris, Vice President Mike Pence repeatedly misrepresented, and
often simply lied about, President Donald Trump’s record on the coronavirus. Here’s what Pence said and how we know he’s not telling
the truth.
1. Equipment. Pence
blamed former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden for
the shortage of masks, ventilators, and other equipment that Trump faced when
the virus arrived this year. “They left the Strategic National Stockpile
empty,” said Pence, adding that the Trump administration “learned from” their
mistakes. That’s bull. Obama left Trump thousands of ventilators, and Trump—far from stocking up—squeezed the budget for pandemics. Trump also cut the staff who would deal
with such a crisis, calling them unnecessary.
He later said he hadn’t refilled the stockpile because “I have a lot of things going on.”
2. Travel. Pence
boasted that Trump “suspended all travel from China” in January. That’s not
true, either. Thanks to exemptions in Trump’s order, almost 40,000 people traveled
from China to the United States in the next two months. Forensic analysis later
determined, with 95 percent certainty, that the “founding virus” of the
outbreak that swamped Washington state arrived from China between Feb. 7 and Feb. 19.
3. Deception. “China
and the World Health Organization did not play straight with the American
people,” Pence charged. “They did not let our personnel into China to get
information on the coronavirus until the middle of February.” But on Feb. 10,
Trump said just the opposite. “China, I can tell you, is working very hard.
We’re working with them,” Trump assured Americans in a Fox News interview.
“We just sent some of our best people over there, World Health Organization.
And a lot of them are composed of our people.” The president went on: “They’re
now in China. And we’re helping ‘em out. We’re in very good shape.” Either
Trump was lying when he said that, or Pence is lying now. (Trump also played
down the virus long after the
WHO sounded the alarm.)
4. Mitigation. Pence
said Trump saved lives by “shutting down roughly half of the American economy”
when “medical experts” urged him to do so “in the second week of March.” But up
to that point, Trump resisted mitigation, with catastrophic results. On Feb.
26, Trump threatened to fire Nancy Messonnier, the director of the National Center
for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, for suggesting mitigation. On March
9, he tweeted that nothing should be shut down. Researchers estimate that the delay in mitigation from
March 1 to March 15 caused more than 50,000 deaths.
5. Projections. To
justify the 210,000 fatalities Trump has allowed so far, Pence claimed that in
March, Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases, and Deborah Birx, the response coordinator for the White
House Coronavirus Task Force, projected a possible U.S. death toll of “more
than 200,000,” even “if we did everything right.” No, they didn’t. At a White House briefing on March 31, Birx said the upper end of the plausible
range was 200,000, and she specified that the projected estimate of 100,000 to
200,000 deaths was based on “not assuming” that Americans did “everything that
they’re supposed to be doing.” Birx added, “We can do a lot better than that.”
6. Negligence. Pence
brushed off a question about the Sept. 26 White House celebration for Trump’s
Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett. During the celebration, Trump, Pence,
and other Republicans had flouted every health rule—dozens of guests, no masks,
no social distance—resulting in numerous infections. “It was an outdoor event, which all of our scientists
regularly and routinely advise,” Pence claimed during the debate. That’s a
deeply dishonest answer. Most of the celebration took place indoors,
and pictures show
that Trump and other attendees flouted the rules there as well.
7. Money. Pence
said the administration was doing everything possible to get people through
financial hardships caused by the virus. “We literally have spared no expense to
help the American people and the American worker through this,” he insisted.
That’s a ludicrous howler. The day before the debate, Trump announced that he
had told Senate Republicans to “stop negotiating” on an aid package and “to instead focus full time on approving” Barrett. “Our Economy is doing very well,” Trump declared.
“The Stock Market is at record levels.” On Wednesday morning, hours before the
debate, Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, reaffirmed that “the stimulus negotiations are off.”
8. Vaccines. Pence
even lied about what happened in the debate. After Harris talked about
coronavirus vaccinations, he said it was “unconscionable” of her to “continue
to undermine public confidence in a vaccine if the vaccine emerges during the
Trump administration.” But the transcript shows that Harris expressed full
confidence in a vaccine—“I’ll be the first in line to take it, absolutely”—if it was recommended by Fauci and other “public health
professionals” in the administration, rather than by Trump alone.
Trump has lied all along about
the virus and how he dealt with it. Against the background of the president’s
recklessness, Pence has been a voice of relative sanity. But with the election
bearing down on him, and a record he can’t honestly defend, the vice president
has decided that honesty must go.
