Vice President Mike Pence accused the media of “fear mongering” with COVID-19 in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published on Tuesday, while wondering why President Donald Trump and the rest of the administration’s response to the outbreak wasn’t receiving glowing reviews.
Rattling off Trump’s usual laundry list of what he claims to be the administration’s “great progress” with the virus, Pence claimed that the media “has tried to scare the American people every step of the way.”
“The truth is, whatever the media says, our whole-of-America approach has been a success,” the vice president wrote. “We’ve slowed the spread, we’ve cared for the most vulnerable, we’ve saved lives, and we’ve created a solid foundation for whatever challenges we may face in the future. That’s a cause for celebration, not the media’s fear mongering.”
Pence’s self-congratulatory remarks echo that of White House senior adviser and son-in-law to Trump Jared Kushner, who described his father-in-law’s handling of the pandemic as a “great success story” at the end of April.
However, there have been jumps in COVID-19 cases in several states in recent days as parts of the country begin rolling back stay at home measures, and the death toll has climbed past 116,000, according to John Hopkins University’s outbreak tracker.
