Really Good Read, especially the 16,600 ventilators in stock when Trump said the cupboard was bare.
Trump’s ABC News town hall: Four Pinocchios, over and over again
By
Glenn Kessler
September 15, 2020 at 8:35 p.m. PDT
At the ABC News town hall Tuesday night, President Trump was challenged by ordinary voters in ways that he rarely experiences in the safe spaces of Fox News, where he regularly answers questions. But he still retreated to false or misleading talking points that he offers in his usual venues. Here’s a quick tour through 24 claims made at the Philadelphia town hall, in the order in which he answered questions.
“We’re very close to having the vaccine. If you want to know the truth, the previous administration would have taken perhaps years to have a vaccine because of the FDA and all the approvals, and we’re within weeks of getting it. You know, could be three weeks, four weeks, but we think we have it.”
Most experts believe a scientifically credible vaccine for the novel coronavirus will not be available until at least early 2021, and vaccine manufacturers insist they will not be rushed for political considerations. In any case, it will take months to make a safe vaccine available to most Americans. Trump has no basis to claim the Obama administration would have been slower, given how poorly the Trump administration ramped up coronavirus testing.
“If you look at what we’ve done compared to other countries, with the excess mortality, the excess mortality rate, we’ve done very, very well.”
Trump can cherry-pick whatever numbers he wants, but as moderator George Stephanopoulos pointed out, the United States ranks poorly compared to its peers on most measures of the coronavirus.
“We were short on ventilators because the cupboards were bare when we took it over.”
This is a Four-Pinocchio claim. When the new coronavirus emerged, the Strategic National Stockpile held 16,660 working ventilators, which turned out to be enough to deal with the initial surge of the pandemic, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. (Almost 11,000 were distributed to states.) HHS said that the number available in March 2020 was essentially the same number as of January 2017, when President Barack Obama left office.
“We have 20 percent of the cases [in the world] because of the fact that we do much more testing. If we wouldn’t do testing, you wouldn’t have cases. You would have very few cases.”
This is a nonsensical statement. The number of coronavirus cases rose in the United States because the disease has been spreading for months, abetted in part by a lax and inconsistent response from U.S. political leaders. As of mid-2020, the total number of new weekly cases had been rising, and the rate of positive test results also was increasing.
Without testing, the scope of the pandemic would be unclear and hospitals and doctors would not be able to prepare. Ending testing would not end the spread of the disease. “When the virus is under control, testing doesn’t uncover more cases. It’s a tool for keeping the epidemic at bay,” said former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb.
“I read where other people said do it. No people that I saw said do it. And I know they said security advisers and others — I put a ban on when it wasn’t at all popular. Joe Biden said I was xenophobic because I put the ban on, and I thought that was a very unfair — and by the way he’s totally taken that back. But I’m not sure he knows what it means.”
The president frequently claims he took bold action that was criticized. News reports say he was reluctant to impose the ban, citing his relationship with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, but the action was urged by his top health advisers. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told reporters on Feb. 7: “The travel restrictions that we put in place in consultation with the president were very measured and incremental. These were the uniform recommendations of the career public health officials here at HHS.”
Any criticism was scattered and relatively muted. Trump points to a comment by former vice president Joe Biden — “This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia … and fearmongering to lead the way instead of science” — but Biden says that did not refer to the travel restrictions.
“No, no. I didn’t say one way or the other. I’m not saying one way or the other.”
Trump falsely denied he played down the coronavirus. He did so for at least six weeks before the rising caseload made the problem impossible to ignore.
“So I didn’t say anything bad about President Xi initially, because nobody knew much about the disease. Nobody knew the seniors are susceptible. They thought people would be susceptible — but not just — you know the seniors are really a very, very endangered group of people, especially if they have problems with hearts or diabetes or any of that.”
Taped interviews recorded by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward show that Trump knew how dangerous the coronavirus was by Feb. 7.
“Well, I didn’t downplay it. I actually — in many ways I up-played it in terms of action. My action was very strong. Yes, because what I did was, with China — I put a ban on with Europe, I put a ban on. And we would have lost thousands of more people, had I not put the ban on.”
On Jan. 31, the president announced that effective Feb. 2, non-U.S. citizens were barred from traveling from China, but there were 11 exceptions. Meanwhile, U.S. citizens and permanent residents could still travel from China but were subject to screening and a possible 14-day quarantine. Trump’s action did not take place in a vacuum. Many airlines were canceling flights, and by our count, at least 38 countries took similar action before or at the same time the U.S. restrictions were put in place.
Meanwhile, Trump also touts his restrictions on travel from Europe as effective. But a Washington Post examination found that his abrupt decision led to one final viral infusion before the country was forced to shut down. “The lapses surrounding the spread from Europe stand alongside other breakdowns — in developing diagnostic tests, securing protective gear and imposing social distancing guidelines — as reasons the United States became so overwhelmed,” The Post reported. “The travel mayhem was triggered by many of the same problems that plagued the U.S. response to the pandemic from the outset: Early warnings were missed or ignored. Coordination was chaotic or nonexistent. Key agencies fumbled their assignments. Trump’s errant statements undermined his administration’s plans and endangered the public.”
Trump announced his restrictions on parts of Europe on March 11, more than a month after restrictions on non-U.S. citizens coming from China. In point of fact, Trump announced a bar on the entry of foreign nationals from the Schengen Area, the European Union’s border-free travel zone, a 26-nation region that does not include Britain, Ireland or 21 other European countries, including Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Ukraine and Russia. He later extended the restrictions to the United Kingdom and Ireland.
(Continued)
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Trump’s ABC News town hall: Four Pinocchios, over and over again
By
Glenn Kessler
September 15, 2020 at 8:35 p.m. PDT
At the ABC News town hall Tuesday night, President Trump was challenged by ordinary voters in ways that he rarely experiences in the safe spaces of Fox News, where he regularly answers questions. But he still retreated to false or misleading talking points that he offers in his usual venues. Here’s a quick tour through 24 claims made at the Philadelphia town hall, in the order in which he answered questions.
“We’re very close to having the vaccine. If you want to know the truth, the previous administration would have taken perhaps years to have a vaccine because of the FDA and all the approvals, and we’re within weeks of getting it. You know, could be three weeks, four weeks, but we think we have it.”
Most experts believe a scientifically credible vaccine for the novel coronavirus will not be available until at least early 2021, and vaccine manufacturers insist they will not be rushed for political considerations. In any case, it will take months to make a safe vaccine available to most Americans. Trump has no basis to claim the Obama administration would have been slower, given how poorly the Trump administration ramped up coronavirus testing.
“If you look at what we’ve done compared to other countries, with the excess mortality, the excess mortality rate, we’ve done very, very well.”
Trump can cherry-pick whatever numbers he wants, but as moderator George Stephanopoulos pointed out, the United States ranks poorly compared to its peers on most measures of the coronavirus.
“We were short on ventilators because the cupboards were bare when we took it over.”
This is a Four-Pinocchio claim. When the new coronavirus emerged, the Strategic National Stockpile held 16,660 working ventilators, which turned out to be enough to deal with the initial surge of the pandemic, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. (Almost 11,000 were distributed to states.) HHS said that the number available in March 2020 was essentially the same number as of January 2017, when President Barack Obama left office.
“We have 20 percent of the cases [in the world] because of the fact that we do much more testing. If we wouldn’t do testing, you wouldn’t have cases. You would have very few cases.”
This is a nonsensical statement. The number of coronavirus cases rose in the United States because the disease has been spreading for months, abetted in part by a lax and inconsistent response from U.S. political leaders. As of mid-2020, the total number of new weekly cases had been rising, and the rate of positive test results also was increasing.
Without testing, the scope of the pandemic would be unclear and hospitals and doctors would not be able to prepare. Ending testing would not end the spread of the disease. “When the virus is under control, testing doesn’t uncover more cases. It’s a tool for keeping the epidemic at bay,” said former Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb.
“I read where other people said do it. No people that I saw said do it. And I know they said security advisers and others — I put a ban on when it wasn’t at all popular. Joe Biden said I was xenophobic because I put the ban on, and I thought that was a very unfair — and by the way he’s totally taken that back. But I’m not sure he knows what it means.”
The president frequently claims he took bold action that was criticized. News reports say he was reluctant to impose the ban, citing his relationship with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, but the action was urged by his top health advisers. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told reporters on Feb. 7: “The travel restrictions that we put in place in consultation with the president were very measured and incremental. These were the uniform recommendations of the career public health officials here at HHS.”
Any criticism was scattered and relatively muted. Trump points to a comment by former vice president Joe Biden — “This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia … and fearmongering to lead the way instead of science” — but Biden says that did not refer to the travel restrictions.
“No, no. I didn’t say one way or the other. I’m not saying one way or the other.”
Trump falsely denied he played down the coronavirus. He did so for at least six weeks before the rising caseload made the problem impossible to ignore.
“So I didn’t say anything bad about President Xi initially, because nobody knew much about the disease. Nobody knew the seniors are susceptible. They thought people would be susceptible — but not just — you know the seniors are really a very, very endangered group of people, especially if they have problems with hearts or diabetes or any of that.”
Taped interviews recorded by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward show that Trump knew how dangerous the coronavirus was by Feb. 7.
“Well, I didn’t downplay it. I actually — in many ways I up-played it in terms of action. My action was very strong. Yes, because what I did was, with China — I put a ban on with Europe, I put a ban on. And we would have lost thousands of more people, had I not put the ban on.”
On Jan. 31, the president announced that effective Feb. 2, non-U.S. citizens were barred from traveling from China, but there were 11 exceptions. Meanwhile, U.S. citizens and permanent residents could still travel from China but were subject to screening and a possible 14-day quarantine. Trump’s action did not take place in a vacuum. Many airlines were canceling flights, and by our count, at least 38 countries took similar action before or at the same time the U.S. restrictions were put in place.
Meanwhile, Trump also touts his restrictions on travel from Europe as effective. But a Washington Post examination found that his abrupt decision led to one final viral infusion before the country was forced to shut down. “The lapses surrounding the spread from Europe stand alongside other breakdowns — in developing diagnostic tests, securing protective gear and imposing social distancing guidelines — as reasons the United States became so overwhelmed,” The Post reported. “The travel mayhem was triggered by many of the same problems that plagued the U.S. response to the pandemic from the outset: Early warnings were missed or ignored. Coordination was chaotic or nonexistent. Key agencies fumbled their assignments. Trump’s errant statements undermined his administration’s plans and endangered the public.”
Trump announced his restrictions on parts of Europe on March 11, more than a month after restrictions on non-U.S. citizens coming from China. In point of fact, Trump announced a bar on the entry of foreign nationals from the Schengen Area, the European Union’s border-free travel zone, a 26-nation region that does not include Britain, Ireland or 21 other European countries, including Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Ukraine and Russia. He later extended the restrictions to the United Kingdom and Ireland.
(Continued)
