Only in Trump World would tens of thousands of daily coronavirus cases be held up as evidence of Dear Leader’s successful management of the pandemic. Host Neil Cavuto suggested that Joe Biden is worried it’s not “as big an issue as maybe he thought it might be.”
The Republican National Convention this week made a concerted effort to suggest that the coronavirus pandemic is in the rearview mirror because Trump masterfully handled it (it’s not and he didn’t).
But Fox host Neil Cavuto tried to further the GOP gaslighting in a discussion with Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) this morning.
First, Cavuto tried to delegitimize Joe Biden’s criticisms of Trump. Cavuto asked, “Do you think Joe Biden is being honest here? This is the same guy who faulted the president, many others have as well, for not being on top of this, for not shutting things down sooner, and now he’s faulting the president for the shutdown in our sports. That would seem like me giving dietary advice to people.”
Ryan asked, “Where does the buck stop? … [I]n January, February, March, this president was asleep at the switch. No one can deny that. He was saying it was a hoax, he was encouraging governors to open up in Florida, Georgia, Arizona. So look, he fumbled.”
“And he has to take responsibility for it,” Ryan continued. “If the president would’ve handled this, if he would have grabbed it and led from the beginning, if we shut the country down, if we did the mask mandate, we would be in a position where we would have football in the fall.”
“I guess I just don’t know,” Cavuto claimed. Then he began attacking Biden’s response to the pandemic, as if he were the one in charge. “The urgency of it didn’t seem to hit him until much, much later,” Cavuto said accusingly, “Furthermore, a lot of the things that the president has since done, like faster testing, getting more test kits out, making sure that Americans are covered with everything from ventilators and all that they need and that they’re American made – check, check, check, check. The president has done all that.”
Despite evidence to the contrary, Cavuto said, “So, I guess I’m not here to play a partisan argument on this.”
Ryan replied, “The original question is why aren’t we playing football? And the reason for that is that in January, February, March, the president fumbled. … You can’t just whitewash that and pretend like it didn’t happen, it did.”
“But how do you know that, Congressman?” Cavuto asked. He said “cases are reigniting” in other countries that “according to the Biden camp have done and continue to do a much better job than we do, how would that have been prevented?”
Cavuto forgot to mention that even with those resurgences, the U.S. still was wayyyy more cases. That's per capita, too. According to The New York Times, Germany has 7 cases per 100,000, New Zealand has 1, China has fewer than 1, and Hong Kong has 2. The U.S. has 90.
After the two argued about the sports situation for a bit, Cavuto made his pitch that fewer than 50,000 cases a day is a sign of success (This week’s average is 41,980 cases per day, according to The Times.)
CAVUTO: Isn’t it less of a mess? We’ve had 11 straight days now where new cases have been under 50,000. We had 28 states little more than a month ago that were having problem spikes, it’s down to four right now. So, I’m not saying it’s still not a mess but it’s certainly a much smaller mess. And maybe that’s one of the things that Joe Biden is worried about that this is not going to be as big an issue as maybe he thought it might be.
FACT CHECK: A recent Gallup poll found that a growing number of Americans consider COVID-19 the most important problem in the U.S. right now.
You can watch Fox News try to gaslight COVID-19 away below, from the August 29, 2020 Cavuto Live.
Italy was the second country to be hit (after China) and things were really bad for a while, mostly because nobody knew much about the virus. A lot of mistakes were made but the government was willing to learn and it did.
Once the Government woke up, they got practically everything right: full lockdown, with police cordons around the hot spots, testing, testing, testing and more testing. With a population of about 65 million, we’re doing 70,000 to 100,000 tests a day. My own impression is that they were successful with an approach to messaging that mobilised everybody. Attempts by the far right to politicise the matter resulted in a sharp decline in the polls.
From the start, the messaging has been complete, consistent, appropriate and long on details on how knowledge of the virus was evolving. By end July (seven months), the daily case count had dropped to under 100, most of whom were asymptomatic. Hospitalisations and deaths had followed the same downward trend.
By end August (today), after the first two waves of annual vacation, the case count is hovering around 1200-1500 per day but the rising trend has not been accompanied by increases in hospitalisations and deaths. This might be due to the average age of people testing positive dropping from over 65 to under 40. Testing at ports of entry has been intensified and nobody’s complaining. Covidiots are becoming extinct due to the devastating disapproval of our elderly ladies.
Simply put: doing the right thing to protect others is perceived as being the right thing to do.
Here’s hoping that the handling of the upcoming opening of the schools will be similarly effective.
In the case of Hannity and Carlson, you see an increasing level of anger, vitriol and open desperation that the election may not go their way. In the case of Laura Ingraham, you have the desperate laughter that catches at the wrong times. In the case of Cavuto, there’s just this odd smug demeanor. Maybe he knows something we don’t – or maybe he just enjoys throwing mud.
To be clear, for all the mudballs he was heaving at Biden, Biden was not the US President in January, February or March of this year. The actual president was Mike Pence, who completely bungled this situation, and Pence’s spokesman is continuing to claim that COVID will just “go away”. In the meantime, tens of millions of Americans are unemployed, tens of millions more are under-employed, and angry Right Wingers in the Senate and in the Pence White House have made sure that they will receive no help as we head through the fall.
One angry Right Wing congressman just proposed a bill where anyone protesting would be denied the $600 federal unemployment boost. Which would be funny if it wasn’t so vicious and if tens of millions weren’t hurting badly right now. Not to mention that nobody is receiving the $600 anymore, and thanks to angry Right Wingers like that congressman, nobody will be likely to do so at any point before 2021.
In parallel, we have the intelligence agencies now deciding that Congress will no longer be briefed on foreign election interference. Their childish tactics are not just laughable, they’re incredibly dangerous.