Clearing up the Trump defunding CDC/ridding pandemic team & Trump called Coronavirus a hoax
Seen many posts here of each side saying he did this and then the other side saying he didn't do it. Let's clear the air with some facts.
Defunding CDC/Getting Rid of Pandemic Team:
-Trump's budget proposal included a 16% reduction in CDC funding from 2020 spending levels.
-Every time Trump proposed a cut to the CDC, Congress has passed spending bills with year-over-year increases for the CDC that Trump then signs into law.
-Congress is responsible for actually setting the US governments budget. Presidents will propose their own version of the budget but it's mostly up to Congress. The president does have to sign the budget into law though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nC8p82YwqE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlCYFh8U2xM (Let's also not forget how corrupt the WHO is and that US taxpayers pay the bulk into that organization)
https://www.state.gov/the-united-states-announces-assistance-to-combat-the-novel-coronavirus/
Dems are correct that Trump proposed funding cuts to the CDC but to say he got rid of them entirely or the pandemic team is not entirely true. Trump proposed those cuts but he didn't actually make those cuts and he also proposed some increases which did get made. Let's not forget that most of the medical equipment is Made in China (others are Made in Italy) so you can see why the US is not as prepared as they should be.
Coronavirus a hoax:
During a Feb. 28, 2020, campaign rally in South Carolina, President Donald Trump likened the Democrats' criticism of his administration's response to the new coronavirus outbreak to their efforts to impeach him, saying "this is their new hoax." During the speech he also seemed to downplay the severity of the outbreak, comparing it to the common flu.
Despite creating some confusion with his remarks, Trump did not call the coronavirus itself a hoax.
On the last Friday of February 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump held a campaign rally in South Carolina and made comments during a speech in which he accused Democrats of “politicizing” the coronavirus outbreak that left many with the impression that he had referred to the virus itself as a “hoax.”
Exact words Trump said:
Now the Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus. You know that, right? Coronavirus. They’re politicizing it. We did one of the great jobs. You say, ‘How’s President Trump doing?’ They go, ‘Oh, not good, not good.’ They have no clue. They don’t have any clue. They can’t even count their votes in Iowa, they can’t even count. No they can’t. They can’t count their votes.
One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia. That didn’t work out too well. They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax. That was on a perfect conversation. They tried anything, they tried it over and over, they’ve been doing it since you got in. It’s all turning, they lost, it’s all turning. Think of it. Think of it. And this is their new hoax. But you know, we did something that’s been pretty amazing. We’re 15 people [cases of coronavirus infection] in this massive country. And because of the fact that we went early, we went early, we could have had a lot more than that.
In context, Trump did not say in the passage above that the virus itself was a hoax. He instead said that Democrats’ criticism of his administration’s response to it was a hoax. He muddied the waters a few minutes later, however, by comparing the number of coronavirus fatalities in the U.S. (none, at that point in time) to the number of fatalities during an average flu season, and accusing the press of being in “hysteria mode”.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-coronavirus-rally-remark/
Downplaying the severity of the virus? True. Calling it a hoax? False.
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