On today’s episode of “Nancy Pelosi Being Nancy Pelosi,” the oft-confused House Speaker, on Sunday, denied she initially downplayed the COVID virus. Same Nancy Pelosi who railed against Donald Trump, repeatedly, accusing him of doing exactly the same thing.
During a segment on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Pelosi replied “No, not at all” when host Dana Bash asked if she regretted initially underestimating the ultimate spread of the virus in the U.S.
Dana Bash being Dana Bash — and CNN being CNN — Bash first took a shot at Trump, but surprisingly, she went after Pelosi a bit, as well.
“There has been a lot of understandable criticism of the administration’s response to this outbreak; I want to ask about yours and Congress and what you said initially, in particular. (Pelosi scrunched up her face, obviously knowing she wasn’t going to like what was coming.)
“On February 29, about two weeks before many states shut down, you said, quote: ‘There are no indications of any widespread infection in the United States’ (Pelosi began to do that weird mouth thing she does when she gets called out.), and you suggested that the first $8 billion package would fully address the scale and seriousness of the public health crisis.
(At which point, a goofy smile overtook Pelosi’s face, as she braced herself for an unaccustomed real journalism question from CNN).
“Looking back, knowing what you know now, did you underestimate the crisis, also?”
Pelosi fessed up. Just kidding. Here’s her preposterous response:
“No, what we did was, at that exact time, was writing the first COVID bill, which we brought to floor and passed on March 4th — and it was about testing, testing testing. Because if you don’t test, you don’t, uh… uh… have a handle on what the problem is, and that was to address, ‘Okay, this is out there, so let’s find out—”
Bash cut Pelosi off: “So no regrets on your part”? “No, not at all,” Pelosi responded, indignantly: “We have had four bills, all bipartisan, but they have not been implemented by the administration.”
See what she did there? “Heck no I didn’t do anything wrong! But the administration…” (See: “whataboutism.”)
And there it is. Same Nancy Pelosi who:
- wrote in a February 29 press release that “there are no current indications of widespread infections in the United States,” the same day that the first confirmed death from the virus was recorded in Washington.
- visited San Francisco’s Chinatown neighborhood on Feb. 24 and urged Californians to “come and visit and enjoy Chinatown,” saying that she thought it was “very safe” to be in a crowded neighborhood.
- accused President Trump of “causing deaths” with his initial response to the virus.
Yet, on February 26, the Centers for Disease Control confirmed the first possible instance of community spread of the virus.
Shocked? Me, neither.
Let’s revisit Pelosi’s “causing deaths” charge against Trump. In an open letter to Democrat lawmakers on April 14, Pelosi detailed her accusations against the president’s (mis)handling of the virus.
The truth is that in January Donald Trump was warned about this pandemic, ignored those warnings, took insufficient action and caused unnecessary death and economic disaster.
The truth is that Donald Trump told his most loyal followers that the pandemic was a hoax and that it would magically disappear, thus endangering lives and paving the way for economic disaster.
The truth is that we did not have proper testing available in March despite Trump repeatedly claiming that we did; and even now, we do not have adequate tests, masks, PPE, and necessary equipment, which creates unnecessary death and suffering.
The truth is because of an incompetent reaction to this health crisis, the strong economy handed to Donald Trump is now a disaster, causing the suffering of countless Americans and endangering lives.
The truth is a weak person, a poor leader, takes no responsibility. A weak person blames others.
OK, one more time. Donald Trump did not refer to the Wuhan virus as a “hoax.” What Trump did do was refer to the Democrats’ attempt to politicize the virus as a hoax.
Yet Pelosi has continued the “hoax” hoax for nearly five months.
As I reported earlier this month, here’s part of what Trump said in a February 29 speech that led to Pelosi’s false accusation.
“Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. Coronavirus. They’re politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs, you say, “How’s President Trump doing?” They go, “Oh, not good, not good.” They have no clue; they don’t have any clue. They can’t even count their votes in Iowa. They can’t count their votes!
“One of my people came up to me and said, “Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia. That didn’t work out too well. They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything, they tried it over and over. They’ve been doing it since you got in. It’s all turning, they lost, it’s all turning. Think of it. And this is their new hoax.”
Here’s the video.
While we’re at it, let’s take a short trip down Memory Lane and visit some of Pelosi’s other irresponsible actions and ridiculous comments about the virus pandemic.
On March 12, we reported that Pelosi delayed a vote on a virus funding package prior to Super Tuesday in order to be able to campaign against Republicans in seven districts. (See: “Democrat priorities.”)
As we reported on April 3, Pelosi claimed she “knew” about the scope of the virus threat from the beginning. During an appearance on MSNBC, she angrily slammed Republican lawmakers with this beaut:
““They can’t handle their jobs, I guess. What are they saying? We ignored it? It was self-evident. Most people knew about it and certainly those of responsibility. So I say of that, either you can’t handle your job, but don’t blame impeachment on that. Just blame it on the fact that you didn’t want to face the reality, and that denial and that delay cost lives.”
Uh-huh. Then why the reckless recommendation to visit Chinatown?
We reported on April 19 on Pelosi’s ludicrous defense of her February promotion of Chinatown tourism. During an appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” Pelosi told host Mike Wallace that she was only trying to “end discrimination” against Asian-Americans.
“What we were trying to do is end the discrimination, the stigma that was going out against the Asian-American community and in fact, if you will look, the record will show that our Chinatown has been a model of containing and preventing the virus, and I’m confident in our folks there and thought it was necessary to offset some of the things that the president and others were saying about Asian-Americans and making them a target. A target of violence across the country.”
Uh-huh, sure she was. Nonsense.
What Pelosi was clearly trying to do — both with her February trip to Chinatown and her ridiculous defense of the trip during her interview with Wallace — was exploit pretend-racism against Asian-Americans.
I could list multiple other examples, but it’s about time to wrap this one up. So here’s the bottom line:
Politics is politics. Spinners gonna spin. And when it comes to major-league spinning, ain’t nobody got nothin’ on Nancy Pelosi.
Some would characterize Pelosi’s unique “talent” for spinning any and all negative news about the Democrat Party or herself as bald-facing lying. I am firmly among those “some.” Bigly.
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