‘Alternate Reality’: Biden Campaign Calls Out RNC’s Rosy View Of COVID Pandemic

WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 15: Director of the United States National Economic Council Larry Kudlow speaks to reporters outside the West Wing of the White House on May 15, 2020 in Washington, DC.  Kudlow stated that the U.S. economy is essentially still in free fall and argued that the country cannot spend its way out of a pandemic-driven downturn. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 15: Director of the United States National Economic Council Larry Kudlow speaks to reporters outside the West Wing of the White House on May 15, 2020 in Washington, DC. Kudlow stated that the U.... WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 15: Director of the United States National Economic Council Larry Kudlow speaks to reporters outside the West Wing of the White House on May 15, 2020 in Washington, DC. Kudlow stated that the U.S. economy is essentially still in free fall and argued that the country cannot spend its way out of a pandemic-driven downturn. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) MORE LESS
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The Biden campaign early Wednesday pushed back on the GOP convention’s rosy view of the COVID-19 pandemic, which killed more than 1,100 people in the United States on Tuesday alone. 

In a three-minute pre-taped revisionist history lesson, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow repeatedly referred to the coronavirus pandemic in the past tense, suggesting it was a once-in-a-century hurtle that the country has already surmounted. 

“It was awful,” Kudlow said, of the COVID-19 crisis that has killed more than 178,000 people in the United States and continues to kill more than 1,000 people per day as it did for five straight days last week. “Health and economic impacts were tragic. Hardship and heartbreak were everywhere,” he said.

“But presidential leadership came swiftly and effectively with an extraordinary rescue for health and safety to successfully fight the COVID virus.”

Kudlow is not unfamiliar with the kind of head-in-sand oblivion that he spewed on Tuesday. He had also famously asserted in late February that the coronavirus pandemic had been contained “pretty close to airtight,” and months later defended those claims to CNN anchor Jake Tapper in May, suggesting — as the coronavirus tore across the United States — that his winter remarks had been factual at the time.

Communications director for the Biden campaign, Kate Bedingfield, pushed back on what she called an the RNC’s “delusion” amid months of “utter mismanagement” of the pandemic by Trump in a statement issued Wednesday.

“President Trump’s RNC is an alternate reality,” Bedingfield said. “In this delusion, thousands of Americans didn’t die in the last week from COVID-19, nor have millions of Americans been infected or put out of work.”

The Biden campaign official rebuked Republicans for putting forward no clear plan for beating back the pandemic in the convention’s first two nights. 

“Donald Trump’s continual refusal to take this virus seriously has given the United States the worst outbreak in the world,” Bedingfield said in the statement.

“His convention’s refusal to come to grips with reality or acknowledge the magnitude of the loss is a stark reminder to Americans of his complete failure to lead,” she added.

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Notable Replies

  1. The ads write themselves. Please proceed.

  2. In the battle between Trump’s lies and Biden’s truth, the lies will always win among the true believers. No sense in trying to convert them. Instead, simply put out Trump’s lies to the rest of the electorate and pray for the best.

  3. It really is rather amazing. So many delusional people running our government. Either that, or they know the truth and are bald-faced liars. From the outside looking in, it really doesn’t make any difference. They are grossly dysfunctional and incapable of anything but maladministration while driving us all down.

  4. Avatar for zandru zandru says:

    I’m guessing it will be maybe 250,000 dead in the US by Election Day. Maybe more, if the business interests succeed in forcing too-quick reopenings. Today (at 1:30) the New Mexico Supreme Court will hear a lawsuit by the restaurant industry which challenges Gov. MLG’s ban on indoor dining. They, and the state Republican Party, have been launching one lawsuit after another challenging the Gov’s power to impose emergency rules to protect the public health.

    If it’s your life v their bottom line, the one with the $ figure will always triumph.

  5. Well, thank goodness our president* single-handedly defeated the coronavirus threat. Let’s stop wearing masks, re-open the entire country and forget this whole thing ever happened. Kudlow is truly a clown.

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