Pennsylvania congressional candidate Jim Bognet released a television ad Wednesday assuring voters that he will “make China pay” for not being transparent about the severity of coronavirus.
Bognet can be seen in the ad standing in front of what the Republican candidate says is his now-closed family business, promising to hold China accountable. He is running for office against Rep. Matt Cartwright, a Democrat, in Pennsylvania’s 8th district.
“The Chinese lied to us. They tried to cover up coronavirus. When I’m your congressman we’ll make China pay for the lies they told, the jobs they stole, and the lives we’ve lost,” Bognet says in the ad after he pans the camera pans to reveal his family’s business property.
“While we grieve the lives lost, care for the sick, and develop treatments, we must not lose sight of who is responsible for this deadly epidemic spreading across the world,” Bognet said in a statement attached to the campaign ad, which will run on television across parts of Scranton.
The statement notes that COVID-19 impacted his family construction business.
“The Chinese Communists lied to the whole world, and the results have been deadly to America,” Bognet added. (RELATED: ‘China Was Not Truthful’: Ex-FDA Chief Scott Gottlieb Explains How Beijing Misled The World About Coronavirus)
Government officials argue that China’s lack of transparency about the severity of the virus made matters much worse than they would have otherwise been.
“China was not truthful with the world at the outset of this,” former Federal Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Sunday on CBS.
Bognet concludes saying “We will make America great again,” referencing President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign slogan. Bognet is a former Trump administration official who was appointed to support American job creation and manufacturing.
He raked in $275,000 during the first quarter of 2020, according to Bognet’s press release.
Cartwright’s district voted for Trump by 10 points in 2016. It is one of the 30 congressional districts carried by Trump with a sitting Democratic member of the U.S. House.
The four-term congressman voted in favor of impeaching the president and is a member of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s leadership team.
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