As Twitchy reported earlier, the Trump campaign put out a blistering video tying Joe Biden to China with clip after clip of Biden downplaying any threat China could pose to the United States.

Politico’s Alex Thompson deduced that the ad was more of President Trump trying to make the COVID-19 crisis “all about China,” which the mainstream media, in sync with the Chinese Communist Party, are trying their hardest to prevent.

This new Trump ad bashing Biden is also more of him trying to go on offense on COVID-19 by making it all about China. pic.twitter.com/kxSpm2AcXQ — Alex Thompson (@AlxThomp) April 9, 2020

Lot of Trump-y figures on the right were early on ringing the alarm b/c they were China hawks.https://t.co/oafvYWbXxJ But Trump was also notably not one of them as he praised China's response throughout Feb. even after the travel ban. https://t.co/hYvpzWRQ4P — Alex Thompson (@AlxThomp) April 9, 2020

Andrew Clark, rapid response director for the Trump campaign, cited Politico calling Trump’s travel ban an “aggressive response.”

From Politico (your own outlet) on February 5th. "The Trump administration's aggressive response to the Wuhan coronavirus is raising fresh worries about U.S. relations with China." Just a few days after Biden criticized the Trump travel restrictions as "hysterical xenophobia." https://t.co/Vw55kiikKO pic.twitter.com/YRnZraloGA — Andrew Clark (@AndrewHClark) April 9, 2020

Who should pop up but Andrew Bates, the Biden campaign’s rapid response director.

Another hour, another lie: "Trump’s portrayal of his China order isn’t accurate, and there’s no record of Biden specifically criticizing the decision." https://t.co/Ifdq91eY5O Trump should have listened to Biden: "Were I president now, I would not be taking China's word for it." https://t.co/sR9gB5yMWV — Andrew Bates (@AndrewBatesNC) April 9, 2020

That Bloomberg link leads to this bit of hair-splitting:

“I made a decision to close off to China,” Trump said on the program Tuesday. “That was weeks early, and honestly I took a lot of heat. Sleepy Joe Biden said it’s xenophobic, I don’t know if he knows what that means but that’s OK. He said it’s racist what I did.” … Trump’s Jan. 31 order restricted travel from China, routing planes to at first seven and then 11 U.S. airports where passengers underwent enhanced health screening. And Biden never specifically called the restrictions xenophobic or racist, though he has said it is racist for Trump to call the disease the “Chinese virus” and said Jan. 31 that Trump has a “record of hysteria and xenophobia — hysterical xenophobia — and fear-mongering.”

So on the same day Trump announced the travel ban from China, Biden brought up Trump’s “record of hysteria and xenophobia” — but he could have been talking about anything.

Here’s the director of strategic response for Trump 2020 hopping in with the video:

President Trump announced Chinese travel restrictions on January 31, 2020. That same day Biden appeared to refer to this decision as "hysterical xenophobia," while discussing the coronavirus. https://t.co/sA2lnFTLCG pic.twitter.com/XLFmsxazja — Francis Brennan (Text TRUMP to 88022) (@FrancisBrennan) April 9, 2020

Back to Bates:

Lie. "Trump’s portrayal of his China order isn’t accurate, and there’s no record of Biden specifically criticizing the decision." https://t.co/Ifdq91eY5O https://t.co/QssbFHZiaq — Andrew Bates (@AndrewBatesNC) April 9, 2020

So according to Bloomberg, there’s no record of Biden criticizing the decision to cut off travel:

And here is the actual tweet.https://t.co/7xmoIOEBNx — ReggieRO (@RO_Reggie) April 9, 2020

I’m just here for the ratio.. you deserve it. — luck box (@lucky4192) April 9, 2020

Um…. Wrong — Stephen (@BOT1101001011) April 9, 2020

Liar. — Alex Cardin – Text TRUMP to 88022 (@alextommal) April 9, 2020

Boy, don't you look dumb. — Anne Moulton (@moulton_anne) April 9, 2020

So according to one writer for Bloomberg, you can’t “specifically” tie any of Biden’s statements to Trump’s travel bans — not even his own tweet criticizing their effectiveness.

So what does Biden have to say about the travel ban today? Would he agree that it worked and admit that Trump was right? Or would he still oppose it and have our borders open?

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