April 18, 2020 DEBUNKED: 8 False Claims in Joe Biden’s Latest Attack Video

Joe Biden’s latest attack on President Trump’s successful handling of the global coronavirus pandemic includes at least 8 false claims. Here are the facts.

1. FALSE CLAIM: “He failed to act.”

THE TRUTH:

Joe Biden’s own top advisor refuted this claim. The guy who Biden said he would put in charge of the pandemic response if he were president, Ron Klain, said on February 11 that the Trump Administration's actions to combat the virus were “far from…nothing.”



On February 24, Nancy Pelosi had no complaints with the Trump Administration’s response. When a reporter asked her if the federal government was doing enough to control this virus, Pelosi responded, “I have confidence in Dr. [Anthony] Fauci at the National Institutes of Health, who has even further confidence in what we’re doing.”



Dr. Fauci – who Joe Biden called “a truth-teller” – said “we acted very, very early,” and President Trump did not delay at all. “[T]he first and only time that I went in and said we should do mitigation strongly, the response [from the President] was, ‘Yes, we’ll do it,’” Dr. Fauci said. President Trump “has listened to what I have said,” Dr. Fauci also said. “When I've made recommendations he's taken them. He's never countered or overridden me.”



New York’s Democrat Governor Andrew Cuomo said not a single life has been lost due to a lack of medical equipment. “[H]ave we lost anyone because we didn’t have a bed, or we didn’t have a ventilator, or we didn’t have health care staff? No,” Cuomo said. “People we lost are the people we couldn't save.”



President Trump’s coronavirus task force started meeting on January 27, and on January 31, President Trump announced restrictions on travel from China (Joe Biden’s top advisor opposed them). That same day, Joe Biden attacked President Trump’s coronavirus response, accusing him of “hysterical xenophobia and fearmongering.” Biden continued to criticize these measures well into March.

2. FALSE CLAIM: “Joe Biden warned the nation in January.”

THE TRUTH:

The video cites Biden’s January 27 op-ed. “But the article itself was more of an attack on President Trump and a recollection of Obama administration steps taken against the 2014 Ebola outbreak than a detailed plan for action against a possible pandemic,” The Washington Post Fact Checker summarized.



Despite Biden’s attempts to rewrite history, he did not mention the Defense Production Act until March 18 (after President Trump). He did not mention expanding hospital capacity until March 12 (after the Trump Administration). He did not mention getting experts into China until February 25 (after they were already there). He did not mention the issue of China’s truthfulness until February 26 (after the White House said it did not trust China’s numbers).

3. FALSE CLAIM: Trump “left us unprepared for a pandemic.”

THE TRUTH:

It was on Biden’s watch that the Strategic National Stockpile of N95 respirator masks was depleted and not restocked following the H1N1 pandemic. According to a USA Today Fact Check, “There is no indication that the Obama administration took significant steps to replenish the supply of N95 masks in the Strategic National Stockpile after it was depleted from repeated crises. Calls for action came from experts at the time concerned for the country’s ability to respond to future serious pandemics. Such recommendations were, for whatever reason, not heeded.” In fact, “The Obama administration sought several cuts in funding for the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) of personal protective equipment (PPE),” according to Fox News.



The Obama-Biden Administration ignored at least three government reports in which "federal officials predicted the United States would experience a critical lack of ventilators" during an outbreak like the global coronavirus pandemic, according to CNN. At least another 7 warnings were issued between 2003 and 2007 while Joe Biden was a U.S. senator. Despite this drumbeat of warnings, Joe Biden did nothing.

4. FALSE CLAIM: “Biden told Trump he should insist on having American health experts on the ground in China.”

THE TRUTH:

The video cites Biden’s comments on February 25, which only highlights how slow Biden was. By the time Biden said this, American experts had already been in Wuhan for three days as part of a World Health Organization team, according to The Washington Post Fact Checker, and 50 days had elapsed since the Trump Administration first sought to send CDC experts to China – efforts that included President Trump himself pressing the issue with the Chinese.

5. FALSE CLAIM: “But Trump rolled over for the Chinese. He took their word for it.”

THE TRUTH:

On February 13, a senior Trump Administration official told CNBC that the White House does “not have high confidence in the information coming out of China” regarding the count of coronavirus cases. Yet on April 2, Joe Biden said that the U.S. has “more coronavirus cases than anywhere in the world,” ignoring the reported findings of the U.S. intelligence community that “China’s numbers are fake” and effectively pushing Chinese talking points.



The video cites President Trump’s January 24 tweet which states in part, “China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency.” But Joe Biden’s top advisor Ron Klain said three days later, on January 27, that China had been “more transparent and more candid than it has been during past outbreaks.” While the President must often be diplomatic in order to achieve the best outcome for the American people, it’s unclear why Biden’s top advisor would need to say this about China.



Biden consistently sided with China throughout his 44 years in Washington, a pattern he has continued during the coronavirus pandemic. On the same day President Trump restricted travel from China to protect America from the coronavirus, Biden attacked him for “xenophobia” and “fearmongering.”

6. FALSE CLAIM: “Trump never got a CDC team on the ground in China” and “didn’t hold China accountable.”

THE TRUTH:

7. FALSE CLAIM: “And the travel ban he brags about? Trump let in 40,000 travelers from China into America after he signed it. Not exactly air tight.”

THE TRUTH:

Biden’s bizarre behavior on this issue continues with this video. He attacked President Trump’s restrictions on travel from China for weeks. Then, two months after the restrictions were imposed, Biden’s staff claimed he actually thought they were a good idea. Now his campaign is attacking the restrictions again.



The 40,000 travelers mentioned in Biden’s video were “American citizens and other authorized travelers” that fell under the exemptions in President Trump’s order, according to The New York Times. “The order exempted American citizens, green-card holders and their noncitizen relatives — exceptions roundly recognized as necessary to allow residents to return home and prevent families from being separated.” If Joe Biden believes American citizens should not have been able to enter the United States, or if he believes families should have been separated, he should say so. Regardless, if Biden wanted a stronger travel ban, he certainly could have said so back on January 31 when President Trump made the call. He didn’t – in fact, he was busy attacking it.

8. FALSE CLAIM: “We have more official reported cases and deaths than any other country.”

THE TRUTH: