President Donald Trump says he intends to re-open the country by Easter Sunday, but Vice President Mike Pence walked that back on Friday after the United States surpassed China as the nation with the most coronavirus cases.
Cases in the United States have passed 90,000 and over 1,300 people have died because of Trump’s miserable response to the pandemic.
Despite the statistics and the continuing lack of necessary basic medical supplies to fight the virus, Pence claimed that Trump has learned lessons from China.
But then CNBC asked Pence about Trump’s obsession with opening the country back up by Easter, a move that would make the pandemic even worse because the virus would be allowed to continue spreading due to the abandonment of stay-at-home and social distancing policies.
In yet another example of Pence cleaning up Trump’s messes, however, he walked that back.
Stay up-to-date with the latest news!
Subscribe and start recieving our daily emails.
“The president expressed, really, an aspirational goal,” Pence insisted. “The president said he would love to see it around Easter… But let me be very clear — there’s going to be areas of the country where we continue to lean in to mitigation efforts.”
Pence listed areas such as New York City that would continue to be under lockdown, but pivoted to areas that haven’t been hit as hard by the pandemic.
“But there are areas of the country, as Dr. Deborah Birx said yesterday … where there’s frankly very little outbreak of coronavirus,” he said. “In the days ahead, we’re going to be giving guidance specifically to different regions of the country about how, as the president says, we might be able to open up the country and get people back to work just as soon as we responsibly can.”
Here’s the video via Twitter:
President Trump’s goal to reopen the country by Easter is “aspirational,” VP Mike Pence says. “There’s going to be areas of the country where we need to continue to lean into mitigation efforts.” https://t.co/vMDigRPcWx pic.twitter.com/CcG4X5k7DM
— CNBC (@CNBC) March 27, 2020
The problem is that the virus could spread in areas that haven’t been as affected if people go back to business as usual before the virus dissipates. People can also be re-infected. That’s why Americans across the country should continue observing social distancing and stay at home. Listen to health experts instead of Trump. Even Dr. Deborah Birx is hard to trust these days because she bends the knee for Trump instead of being a responsible health official like Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Twitter users were certainly not impressed.
Add the word “idiotically” before “aspirational” for a perfect description of Trumpism.
— AJ Martin (@amart865) March 27, 2020
Poor Pence…making an effort to remain a kiss-ass while trying to balance trump’s inane statements against something more realistic.
— Cynthia Leary (@Cynthia_RGL) March 27, 2020
Increasing the risk of many more people dying, what an inspiration!
— Jay Tee Ⓥ (@Jtmon3y) March 27, 2020
What is the aspirational goal with regard to acquiring ventilators?
— earle ingalls (@earleklassen) March 27, 2020
It’s safe to say that Pence is either lying or Trump is going to be angry about being contradicted.
Featured image via screen capture
Like what you see here? Join the discussion on Facebook over at Americans For Sanity!
