FACT CHECK: President Trump’s Response to The Coronavirus is A ‘Phenomenal Accomplishment’

While Joe Biden continues to botch basic facts and make up lies about the coronavirus (here are 13 fact-checked falsehoods), President Trump continues to lead America through the coronavirus crisis with a mountain of new ventilators, a national testing strategy, record-setting development of a vaccine, and a secured supply chain. Democrat governors praised the Trump Administration’s coronavirus response, with Gov. Andrew Cuomo calling it a “phenomenal accomplishment.”

The federal government partnered with the private sector to successfully launch an unprecedented expansion in coronavirus testing.

• The United States leads the world in coronavirus testing, with more than 33 million tests completed and nearly half a million new tests being conducted per day.
   
• President Trump completely overhauled the old and outdated testing system and replaced it with an innovative new testing strategy to meet the country’s needs.
   
• The United States is testing and tracking asymptomatic cases of coronavirus, which allows officials to identify and stop local outbreaks faster than other countries.
   
• “We are in a much better place on testing,” writes National Review’s Rich Lowry, “thanks, in large part, to a Trump-administration strategy that the press scorned, or said didn’t exist.”

The federal government launched a historic mobilization of the public and private sectors to secure the U.S. supply chain for critical coronavirus equipment.

• President Trump has used the FDA and the Defense Production Act to expand coronavirus testing technologies and capacity.
   
• National Review: “Production [of ventilators] was ramped up quickly working with manufacturers and occasionally using the DPA.”
   
• “We needed a significant amount of the supply chain from the administration to allow us to at least double testing in New Jersey,” said New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D). “We got it… they’re helping us out."
   
• Newsweek: “Yet as the Trump administration drew fire for its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, Kushner was setting the wheels in motion to create a new public-private partnership to establish a nationwide centralized database for hospitals to share medical supplies amid shortages.”

President Trump took decisive action to restrict travel with China despite Joe Biden’s accusations of “hysterical xenophobia.”

• President Trump restricted travel from China to slow the spread of the coronavirus, taking early and swift action that the media and Democrats criticized as racist.
   
• Biden criticized President Trump’s actions as “hysterical xenophobia” for weeks before eventually agreeing with President Trump that the travel restrictions saved lives.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden’s coronavirus narrative is a total fairy tale.

To hear Joe Biden tell it, he tried to warn America in January about the coronavirus pandemic and lay out specific steps the Trump Administration should take to prepare. That is a total lie. Aside from the two Iowa town hall examples below, between January 1 and February 12, Biden had at least 49 opportunities at campaign events, during remarks, and in interviews to mention the coronavirus. He didn’t mention it a single time. Six weeks, 49 opportunities, not a single mention.

Biden’s favorite pastime is rewriting history. He’s tried to get away with it when it comes to his years-long support for the Iraq War, his lack of participation in the civil rights movement, his record of putting “kids in cages,” and his opposition to the raid to get Osama bin Laden. Now he’s trying to rewrite what he said on the coronavirus.

Here is a detailed timeline of what Biden and his advisors said about the virus, and what Biden did not say:

January 27 - Biden’s handlers publish an op-ed from Biden in USA Today. According to The Washington Post Fact Checker, the op-ed “did not say… that it was a pandemic, only that it was a possibility.” Additionally, “The article itself was more of an attack on President Trump … than a detailed plan for action against a possible pandemic.”

• Biden DID NOT call for social distancing, DID NOT call for using the Defense Production Act, DID NOT call for increasing production of PPE, DID NOT call for increasing production of ventilators, DID NOT call for sending American experts to China, DID NOT warn against trusting China, DID NOT call for building more hospitals, and DID NOT call for travel restrictions.

January 27 - Top Biden advisor Ron Klain says, “I think what you’d have to say about China is, it’s been more transparent and more candid than it has been during past outbreaks.”

January 28 - Top Biden advisor Ron Klain says, “I wouldn’t [ban Chinese travelers from arriving in the U.S.]. I think that’s premature.”

January 28 - Biden tweets a link to his op-ed.

• Biden DID NOT call for social distancing, DID NOT call for using the Defense Production Act, DID NOT call for increasing production of PPE, DID NOT call for increasing production of ventilators, DID NOT call for sending American experts to China, DID NOT warn against trusting China, DID NOT call for building more hospitals, and DID NOT call for travel restrictions.

January 30 – Biden Public Health Advisory Committee member Dr. Zeke Emanuel says, “Everyone in America should take a very big breath, slow down, and stop panicking and being hysterical. We are having a little too much histrionics on this.”

January 31 - Speaking at a campaign town hall in Iowa shortly after the Trump Administration announced restrictions on travel from China, Biden brings up coronavirus and suggests President Trump is not acting “rationally.” “This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia - hysterical xenophobia - and fearmongering to lead the way instead of science,” says Biden.

• Biden DID NOT call for social distancing, DID NOT call for using the Defense Production Act, DID NOT call for increasing production of PPE, DID NOT call for increasing production of ventilators, DID NOT call for sending American experts to China, DID NOT warn against trusting China, DID NOT call for building more hospitals, and DID NOT call for travel restrictions.

February 1 - Biden tweets about the coronavirus, again accusing President Trump of “hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering.”

• Biden DID NOT call for social distancing, DID NOT call for using the Defense Production Act, DID NOT call for increasing production of PPE, DID NOT call for increasing production of ventilators, DID NOT call for sending American experts to China, DID NOT warn against trusting China, DID NOT call for building more hospitals, and DID NOT call for travel restrictions.

February 1 - Speaking at a campaign town hall in Iowa, Biden brings up coronavirus and says “we don’t know exactly where it’s going to go yet.” He again implicitly criticizes President Trump’s restrictions on travel from China by saying, “Disease has no borders.”

• Biden DID NOT call for social distancing, DID NOT call for using the Defense Production Act, DID NOT call for increasing production of PPE, DID NOT call for increasing production of ventilators, DID NOT call for sending American experts to China, DID NOT warn against trusting China, DID NOT call for building more hospitals, and DID NOT call for travel restrictions.

February 6 - Biden Public Health Advisory Committee member Dr. Irwin Redlener says, “Yes, there is uncertainty, and the headlines are dramatic. But right now, the chances of any of us or anyone we know ever getting a severe, potentially lethal form of the Wuhan virus is negligible.”

February 7 - Biden Public Health Advisory Committee member Lisa Monaco says, “The good news thus far is that the coronavirus appears to be less lethal than its viral cousin SARS was in 2002 and far less lethal than Ebola was in 2014.”

February 11 - Top Biden advisor Ron Klain says, “A serious epidemic – now, the coronavirus may be that, it may not be that. The evidence suggests it's probably not that.”

February 11 - Top Biden advisor Ron Klain says, “Obviously the administration can’t do nothing. Indeed, they are far from doing nothing.”

February 13 - Top Biden advisor Ron Klain says, “We don't have a COVID-19 epidemic in the US but we are starting to see a fear epidemic. Kudos to [Mayor Bill de Blasio] (and others) for standing against that.”

February 20 - Biden Public Health Advisory Committee member Dr. Zeke Emanuel says, “many of the experts are saying, well the warm weather is going to come and, just like with the flu, the coronavirus is going to go down and may move into the Southern Hemisphere.”

February 20 - Biden Public Health Advisory Committee member Dr. Zeke Emanuel says, “Healthy young people do not seem to be at very high risk; if they get it, they typically get a mild case… In that regard it sort of behaves like the flu. A lot of us get the flu, but serious cases that cause mortality tend to be focused on the elderly and those with other chronic diseases.”

February 20 - Biden Public Health Advisory Committee member Dr. Zeke Emanuel says, “People recognized that this is a serious public health problem requiring serious attention and that it could become a much more serious health issue. But, at the moment, most people are thinking that there may be a bit of an overreaction by many, maybe even our own country. If you look at the numbers dispassionately, there are just over 1,000 cases outside of China. Half of them are on that cruise ship in Japan. So, considering the world's population of more than 7 billion people, that’s not a lot.”

February 27 - Top Biden advisor Ron Klain says, “Here’s one more thing everyone should do. They should, tonight, go down to Chinatown in their city and buy dinner or go shopping there. What we see inevitably, what we’re seeing already, is … people staying away out of needless fears about coronavirus.”

February 29 - Biden Public Health Advisory Committee member Dr. Zeke Emanuel says, “So, the public, running out and getting a mask is not going to help.”

March 9 - Biden holds an in-person rally indoors in Michigan.

March 12 - Biden Public Health Advisory Committee member Lisa Monaco replies “no” when asked if President Trump’s 30-day ban on travel from Europe is the right move.

March 12 - Biden tweets, “A wall will not stop the coronavirus. Banning all travel from Europe — or any other part of the world — will not stop it.”

March 18 - In response to President Trump’s tweet about his “very early decision to close the ‘borders’ from China,” Biden tweets, “Stop the xenophobic fear-mongering.”

April 2 - Biden says the upcoming Wisconsin primary could include in-person voting because “a convention having tens of thousands of people in one arena is very different than having people walk into a polling booth with accurate spacing, six to ten feet apart, one at a time going in, and having machines scrubbed down… I think you could hold the election as well dealing with mail-in ballots and same-day registration… I think it's possible to do both.”