A super PAC ad supporting 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden accused President Donald Trump of failure concerning the coronavirus pandemic.
The seven-figure ad, created by pro-Biden Unite the Country PAC, will reportedly run nationally on select broadcast and cable programs except for Fox News. “Crisis Comes” discusses past crises that the United States has experienced, referencing how former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan handled them.
“Crisis comes to every presidency — we don’t blame them for that,” the ad said. “What matters is how they handle it.” (RELATED: Former Vice President Joe Biden Keeps Pushing Misinformation About Coronavirus. Here Are 5 Examples)
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“Donald Trump didn’t create the coronavirus, but he is the one who called hoax, who eliminated the pandemic response team, and who let the virus spread unchecked across America,” the ad continued. “Crisis comes to every president — this one failed.”
The ad accused Trump of calling “hoax” on the coronavirus, a debunked claim that has been highly disputed since POTUS compared Democratic criticism of the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak to Democratic efforts to impeach him.
“This is their new hoax,” the president said.
The ad avoids directly saying that Trump called the coronavirus a hoax, a false claim that Politifact rated “false” and that Biden himself has spread.
“Crisis Comes” accused Trump of eliminating the pandemic response team — a claim that is rated as true but also disputed among former National Security Council members.
Former National Security Council director Beth Cameron said in a Washington Post op-ed that Trump closed the office unnecessarily, but former NSC senior director for counter proliferation and biodefense Tim Morrison suggested Cameron’s argument is a Democratic political narrative.
“It is true that the Trump administration has seen fit to shrink the NSC staff. But the bloat that occurred under the previous administration clearly needed a correction,” he continued.
“One such move at the NSC was to create the counterproliferation and biodefense directorate, which was the result of consolidating three directorates into one, given the obvious overlap between arms control and nonproliferation, weapons of mass destruction terrorism, and global health and biodefense,” the former NSC senior director wrote in a Washington Post op-ed.
He added: “It is this reorganization that critics have misconstrued or intentionally misrepresented. If anything, the combined directorate was stronger because related expertise could be commingled.”
The ad also said the president has “let the virus spread unchecked across America.” But Biden’s own response to the pandemic is to encourage Americans to “listen to the doctors.”
“Listen to what they have to say,” Biden said Tuesday on ‘The View.’ “I would respectfully suggest that you should have Dr. [Anthony] Fauci on a lot more than the president — or anyone who’s not an expert like Fauci — laying out exactly what’s going on.”
Dr. Fauci has praised the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus crisis on multiple occasions, calling the Trump administration both “very positive” and “multifaceted.” (RELATED: Dr. Anthony Fauci Dumps Cold Water On The Media’s Latest Anti-Trump Narrative)
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Dr. Anthony Fauci commends President Trump’s travel restrictions: “absolutely” helped, “the right public health call”https://t.co/hEvJC36fS4 pic.twitter.com/KGHHfhjjAz
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) March 12, 2020
“What the president is trying to do is to balance the public health issues with the fact that this is having an enormous impact on the economy of the country, which may actually indirectly even cause a considerable amount of harm and difficultly, even health wise,” Fauci said during a Tuesday interivew on WMAL’s “Mornings on the Mall” with Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese.
He added: “So, it’s a delicate balancing act, which the president is trying to get it right, and we’re under very intense discussions right now about what the most appropriate timeline is and if we do modify it, how we modify it.”
Unite the Country PAC did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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