How Mike Pence Helped the Coronavirus at the Veep Debate (David Corn)

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Tweet text: Mother Jones
@MotherJones
"As thousands of Americans continue to die weekly, the head of the White House pandemic task force said absolutely nothing to the American people about what they can do to arrest the continuing spread of COVID-19. This was profound negligence."

How Mike Pence helped the coronavirus at the veep debate
Did you catch the vice president's sly wink at anti-maskers?
motherjones.com

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/10/how-mike-pence-helped-the-coronavirus-at-the-veep-debate/


Vice President Mike Pence, the guy in charge of the White House coronavirus task force, boosted the spread of the killer virus on Wednesday night when he debated Sen. Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for vice president. Sure, this sounds strange. He’s supposed to be doing all that can be done to counter the deadly pandemic that has claimed the lives of more than 210,000 Americans. But it’s clear that his task force has failed miserably. (The United States has one of the highest coronavirus death tolls of all wealthy nations.) And during the debate, Pence essentially winked at the anti-maskers, whose opposition to wearing face coverings has contributed to the ongoing and out-of-control transmission of deadly COVID-19.

The first question at the debate predictably focused on the pandemic. USA Today’s Susan Page, the moderator, asked Harris how she and Joe Biden would combat the killer virus, should they win. Harris began with an opening shot at Trump and Pence: “The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country.” She noted that Biden had a plan for testing, contract tracing, and vaccine distribution. And she slammed Trump for downplaying the pandemic and for not encouraging mask-wearing: “The president said, ‘You’re on one side of his ledger if you wear a mask. You’re on the other side of his ledger if you don’t.'”

According to Dr. Anthony Fauci and other public health experts, mask-wearing and social distancing are the two most important steps to take to beat back the pandemic. But Trump and his crew have constantly denigrated masks and turned mask-wearing into an us-versus-them political controversy in which Trumpers perversely oppose masks as an act of freedom and a sign of loyalty to Trump. Pence directly fueled those sentiments at the debate.

Page questioned Pence about the recent Rose Garden event for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, which may have been a superspreader event. As Page noted, there were few masks and no social distancing at this shindig. “How can you expect Americans to follow the administration’s safety guidelines to protect themselves from COVID when you at the White House have not been doing so?” she asked Pence (steering clear of Trump’s own infection).

*snip*

[SunSeeker]

1. He makes my skin crawl.

[North Shore Chicago]

2. He really is repulsive.

When you have no pith in merit, you interrupt, you distract. He has learned from the best.