Biden Campaign Releases What it Says Are ‘President Trump’s Coronavirus Lies: 152 and Counting’
Mandel Ngan/Getty Images, Olivier Douliery/Getty Images
The Biden campaign has released a report detailing President Donald Trump’s 152 lies throughout the coronavirus virus pandemic, claiming there are “undoubtedly more.”
Joe Biden’s list is divided into 14 sections, each featuring a different topic the president has lied about since the virus broke out in the nation at the beginning of the year, and comes as the United States hits a milestone of five million cases.
The report notes that the president has been consistently lying to Americans from the outset, focusing on Trump’s tendency to downplay the virus, his dismissal of mask-wearing and social distancing, his touting of unproven treatments, and his attacks on medical experts such as Dr. Anthony Fauci.
“We can, and we must, do better than Donald Trump’s lies if we want to stop COVID-19,” the report adds. “At every step of this crisis, Trump’s failed leadership has produced tragic results, with more than 160,000 Americans dead, over five million infected, and our economy reeling from the biggest contraction in recorded history.”
Among other topics, the list accuses Trump of minimizing the threat of the virus, blaming Democrats and the Obama administration for the pandemic, lying about the strength of the economy, going after the media, lying about the availability of Personal Protective Equipment in hospitals, and repeatedly inaccurately predicting the number of American casualties.
Many of the what the campaign lists as “lies” have been independently fact-checked, and have been covered by Mediaite as well. The list doesn’t make distinctions between statements that are false and those that are misleading.
Some specific lies covered are:
- Trump claimed that the virus is 99% harmless.
- Trump lied about and exaggerated the efficacy of his administration’s response, claiming that they had done a “great” job at containing and combating the virus.
- On at least 40 occasions, Trump claimed he had imposed an outright “ban” on travel from China and “closed the borders” against the advice of experts, which he has claimed saved “thousands,” “hundreds of thousands,” and even “millions” of lives.
- Trump attempts to undermine Dr. Fauci’s credibility with false claims about Fauci’s past recommendations.
- Trump has repeatedly claimed that U.S. testing is “perfect” and the “best in the world.”
- Trump claims that we only have the highest number of coronavirus cases globally because we were doing the most testing in the world.
- Trump claimed that hospitals were artificially inflating their need for equipment.
- Trump said the virus would go away without a vaccine.
- Trump repeatedly said that the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine was proven effective in treating coronavirus.
- Trump said that he was being sarcastic when he asked medical experts to look into viability of injecting disinfectants to treat virus, that he had only asked medical experts to look into whether or not the sun could treat the virus, and that he was only talking about using disinfectants on hands, not to ingest.
- Trump claimed that the President has the power to decide whether or not to open up states.
- Trump claims that we can safely reopen all schools.
- Trump claims mail-in voting enables “massive” voter fraud.
- Trump floats the idea of postponing the election to protect against fraudulent election results, saying it could take “years” to determine results of election.
The list doesn’t include repetitions of the same statements, which other news organizations do include when tabulating Trump’s dishonest statements. As of last month, The Washington Post had enumerated 20,055 such statements by Trump since he took office.
You can read the full campaign document here.
