Democratic rhetoric on President Donald Trump's coronavirus response has reached new heights.

U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), a far-left freshman Democrat, is now accusing the president of "war crimes" over his administration's response to the pandemic.

"As far as I'm concerned, what's happening with this administration, it's akin to war crimes. Criminal negligence, science denials, a sluggish response," Pressley said in a video this week. "And so we find ourselves in the position of playing catch-up in the midst of a pandemic, which is the last place that you want to be in the midst of any public health crisis, certainly of a pandemic, is working from behind."

Pressley did not, however, explain how the administration is guilty of "criminal negligence."



The United Nations defines war crimes as breaches of an agreement ratified at the 1949 Geneva Convention. Such actions include "willful killing," "torture or inhumane treatment, "willfully causing great suffering, or serious injury to body or health," "Extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity," among other crimes.



Trump and his administration have committed no such crimes.

Moreover, Pressley did not explain what science Trump's administration has denied. In fact, Trump has allowed medical experts, like Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx, to take prominent roles in the pandemic response.

And was Trump's response slow? Not really.

In late January, Trump announced travel restrictions on China and mandatory quarantine for any person entering the U.S. from Hubei, the Chinese province where COVID-19 originated. The action was condemned by the World Health Organization as unnecessary and one that would lead to racial backlash against Asians.

One month after Trump took those precautionary steps, Pressley's leader, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was urging people to congregate outdoors, telling her San Francisco constituents that it was "safe." We now know that such downplaying may have had deadly consequences.