Politics

Dan Crenshaw Squares Off With Bill Maher Over Trump Response To Coronavirus

YouTube/RealTimeWithBillMaher

Virginia Kruta Associate Editor
Font Size:

Republican Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw stood his ground as comedian Bill Maher claimed that President Donald Trump had slow-rolled the nation’s response to coronavirus.

Crenshaw appeared Friday on “Real Time with Bill Maher,” and addressed everything from the federal response timeline to what House Democrats — led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — had been doing at the time.

WATCH:

Maher began by claiming that Trump had been warned in January that the novel coronavirus was going to be a problem, but Crenshaw quickly countered by pointing out that Trump had implemented the Chinese travel ban within days. (RELATED: ‘We Should Blame China’: Bill Maher Unloads On People Tip-Toeing Around Coronavirus Origins)

“Two days later he implemented a restrictive travel ban from China which he was widely criticized for,” Crenshaw said, adding, “That same day, on January 31st, Nancy Pelosi proposed the ‘No Ban Act,’ which would be congressional limitation on what President Trump is actually able to do with that travel restriction.”

Maher responded by arguing that thousands of people had still been allowed to travel to the United States from China after the ban was put into place. “He lies about that,” Maher said. “He said he stopped people coming in from China and he did not.”

“Look, let me address that,” Crenshaw jumped in, pointing out the fact that the people who had been allowed to travel from China after the ban was put into place were American citizens. “U.S. citizens,” he repeated, saying, “So you have to make the argument then that we shouldn’t allow them in.”

“It sounds to me like you’re fully agreeing with President Trump on this when everybody else disagreed with him,”Crenshaw continued as Maher visibly recoiled. “And if you’re saying that you wish that travel restriction had been more extreme, okay fine, you apparently had the foresight when nobody else did. The fact is that if Joe Biden was in charge at that moment, he’s already said he wouldn’t have done it, he criticized it at the time. Nancy Pelosi actually proposed legislation to stop it.”

“Okay, but people are still coming in from China,” Maher said as he tried to redirect the conversation to what the federal government had been doing during the month of February.

Crenshaw responded by pointing out that much of February had been spent not making the bold policy moves but developing the necessary tests that would later be in demand.

“We were in a fact-finding mode in February, and people forget this,” Crenshaw explained.

“We weren’t!” Maher protested, but Crenshaw continued.

“You keep calling February this lost month, it’s really not. It’s just an easy, cheap accusation because there’s no big bold moves taken like there was in January or like there was in March,” Crenshaw continued. “But the reality is, the government was working to create that test. Did it work as fast as we would like? Of course not, and there’s a lot of reasons for that.”

Crenshaw went on to note that, as of March 3, there were still just over 100 cases in the U.S. — and suggested that even if the going recommendation from the experts had been a full lockdown, Americans would not have accepted it at that point in time.

WATCH the full segment here:

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel