PROOF: Trump Didn’t Downplay COVID Seriousness To America (But The Dems Did)

By Jeff Dunetz
LidBlog.com

President Trump told Bob Woodward during his interview sessions that he wanted to always play it down the COVID virus, and he still plays it down, “because I don’t want to create a panic.” This drove Democrats and the liberal media to accuse President Trump of lying to America about the seriousness of the pandemic. However with the words “playing it down,” Trump meant that he wasn’t going to panic, or spread panic. In fact, unless is a member of the liberal media or a leftist Democrat, any reasonable observer looking the actions and words of Trump and his administration knew how serious they took the pandemic, and should have gotten the message that Americans should be taking the virus very seriously also.

Take a look at the COVID-19 timeline below. It runs from Dec. 31, when China announced the discovery of CoronaVirus, through April 13, when President Trump told Woodward the virus was easily transferrable.

Looking at the timeline, you will see that while the President didn’t want America to panic, he always displayed the seriousness of the pandemic in words and action. You will also see that at the same time, Joe Biden and his people were publicly downplaying COVID-19.

The black text below represents an action or announcement by Pres. Trump or part of his administration, indicating the seriousness of Covid-19 (this does not represent all their actions or statements). The brown text describes actions/statements by Democrats, WHO, and Woodward’s question answers. T

• December 31: China reports the discovery of the Coronavirus to the World Health Organization.
• January 6: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a travel notice for Wuhan, China, due to the spreading “pneumonia” cluster.
• January 7: The CDC established a coronavirus incident management system to better share and respond to information about the virus.
• January 9: The NY Times publishes its first report on CoronaVirus, saying, “There’s no evidence that the virus, a coronavirus, is readily spread by humans, and it has not been tied to any deaths. “That was accurate for the time, as we will eventually learn it was totally wrong.
• January 11: The CDC issued a Level I travel health notice for Wuhan, China.
• January 12: The WHO announces COVID is not transferrable from human to human.
• January 14: The WHO doubles-down. Says no human to human transmission on twitter,
• January 16: The impeachment trial in the Senate begins. Democrats put party before the virus.
• January 17: The CDC announces they will begin implementing public health entry screening at the 3 U.S. airports that received the most travelers from Wuhan – San Francisco, New York JFK, and Los Angeles.
• January 21: The CDC activated its emergency operations center to provide ongoing support to the coronavirus response.
• January 22: The WHO changes its mind announces that COVID can be transmitted from human to human
• January 23: The CDC sought a “special emergency authorization” from the FDA to allow states to use its newly developed coronavirus test.
• January 27: The CDC issued a level 3 travel health notice urging Americans to avoid all nonessential travel to China due to the Coronavirus —Another message to America that COVID is serious.
• January 27: Biden’s handlers published an op-ed from Biden in USA Today. Per The Washington Post Fact Checker, the op-ed “did not say COVID was a pandemic, only that it was a possibility.” The article was more of an attack on President Trump and didn’t include a detailed plan for action against a possible pandemic.”
• January 28: Per Woodward at a secret intelligence briefing, national security adviser Robert O’Brien gave Trump warning about the virus, telling the President it would be the “biggest national security threat”
• January 29: The White House announced the formation of the Coronavirus Task Force.
• January 29: First reported case of Corona in the U.S.
• January 31: The Trump administration declared the Coronavirus a public health emergency. Trump announced the China travel ban. Each of these actions should have told the public COVID-19 was an enormously big deal.
• January 30 – Biden Public Health Advisory Committee member Dr. Zeke Emanuel says, “Everyone in America should take a very big breath, slow down, and stop panicking and being hysterical. We are having a little too much histrionics on this… And people should remember not to panic… And the best thing we have is the seasonality. It’s going to go down as spring comes up.”
• January 31 – Speaking at a campaign town hall in Iowa shortly after the Trump Administration announced restrictions on travel from China, Biden brought up the Coronavirus and suggests President Trump is not acting “rationally.” “This is no time for Donald Trump’s record of hysteria and xenophobia – hysterical xenophobia – and fearmongering to lead the way instead of science,” says Biden.
• February 1 – Biden tweets about the Coronavirus, again accusing President Trump of “hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering.”
• February 1 – Speaking at a campaign town hall in Iowa, Biden brought up the Coronavirus and says, “we don’t know exactly where it’s going to go yet.” He again implicitly criticized President Trump’s restrictions on travel from China by saying, “Disease has no borders.”
• February 4: President Trump vowed in his State of the Union Address to “take all necessary steps” to protect Americans from the Coronavirus–Pelosi ripped up her copy.
• February 5: The Senate votes to acquit President Trump, the impeachment farce ends.
• February 6: Biden Public Health Advisory Committee member Dr. Irwin Redlener said, “Yes, there is uncertainty, and the headlines are dramatic. But right now, the chances of any of us or anyone we know ever getting a severe, potentially lethal form of the Wuhan virus is negligible.”
• February 7: Biden Public Health Advisory Committee member Lisa Monaco said, “The good news thus far is that the coronavirus appears to be less lethal than its viral cousin SARS was in 2002 and far less lethal than Ebola was in 2014.”
• February 7:President Trump tells Bob Woodward This is Dangerous Stuff. And the President’s focus on the virus. Trump told Woodward that the night before, he’d spoken to Chinese President Xi Jinping about the virus. Woodward quotes Trump as saying, “We’ve got a little bit of an interesting setback with the virus going in China.” “It goes through the air,” Trump said. “That’s always tougher than the touch. You don’t have to touch things. Right? But the air, you just breathe the air, and that’s how it’s passed. And so that’s a very tricky one. That’s a very delicate one. It’s also more deadly than even your strenuous flus.”
• February 11: The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announces an expanded partnership with Janssen Research & Development to “expedite the development” of a coronavirus vaccine.
• February 11 – Top Biden advisor Ron Klain said, “A serious epidemic – now, the Coronavirus may be that, it may not be that. The evidence suggests it’s probably not that.”
• February 11 – Top Biden advisor Ron Klain said, “Obviously the administration can’t do nothing. Indeed, they are far from doing nothing.”
• February 13 – Top Biden advisor Ron Klain said, “We don’t have a COVID-19 epidemic in the U.S., but we are starting to see a fear epidemic. Kudos to [Mayor Bill de Blasio] (and others) for standing against that.” He was encouraging people to go shopping or out to eat in Chinatown.
• February 18: HHS announced it would engage with Sanofi Pasteur to quickly develop a coronavirus vaccine and develop a treatment for coronavirus infections.
• February 20 – Biden Public Health Advisory Committee member Dr. Zeke Emanuel said, “many of the experts are saying, well the warm weather is going to come and, just like with the flu, the coronavirus is going to go down and may move into the Southern Hemisphere.”
• February 20 – Biden Public Health Advisory Committee member Dr. Zeke Emanuel said, “Healthy young people do not seem to be at very high risk; if they get it, they typically get a mild case… In that regard, it sort of behaves like the flu. A lot of us get the flu, but serious cases that cause mortality tend to be focused on the elderly and those with other chronic diseases.”
• February 24: The Trump Administration sent a letter to Congress requesting at least $2.5 billion in emergency funding to help combat the spread of the Coronavirus, America understands the word emergency, but some in Congress don’t. On the same day, Pelosi invites everyone to come to San Francisco’s Chinatown.
• February 27: President Trump tells attendees at an African American History Month reception, “It’s going to disappear. One day it’s like a miracle, it will disappear.” He adds that “from our shores, you know, it could get worse before it gets better. Could maybe go away. We’ll see what happens. Nobody really knows.” Liberal media freaks In the short term with headlines, Trump says it may get worse. Soon they change their story to the President promised that COVID is going away immediately (he didn’t).
• February 27 – Top Biden advisor Ron Klain said, “Here’s one more thing everyone should do. They should, tonight, go down to Chinatown in their city and buy dinner or go shopping there. What we see inevitably, what we’re seeing already, is … people staying away out of needless fears about Coronavirus.”
• February 29: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allowed certified labs to develop and begin testing coronavirus testing kits while reviewing pending applications.
• February 29: The Trump Administration announced a level 4 travel advisory to areas of Italy and South Korea, Barred all travel to Iran because of the COVID outbreak there. Barred the entry of foreign citizens who visited Iran in the last 14 days. This is another message to the American people that CoronaVirus is s major threat.
• March 3: The CDC lifted federal restrictions on coronavirus testing to allow any American to be tested for Coronavirus, “subject to doctor’s orders.” And President Trump donated his paycheck to fight COVID.
• March 4: Secretary Azar announced that HHS was transferring $35 million to the CDC to help state and local communities that have been impacted most by the Coronavirus.
• March 6: President Trump signed an $8.3 billion bill to fight the coronavirus outbreak.  The bill gave $7.76 billion to federal, state, & local agencies to combat the Coronavirus and authorizes an additional $500 million in waivers for Medicare telehealth restrictions.
• March 11: WHO DECLARES COVID A PANDEMIC.
• March 11: President Trump announces travel restrictions on foreigners who had visited Europe in the last 14 days. Directs the Small Business Administration to issue low-interest loans to affected small businesses and called on Congress to increase this fund by $50 billion, and tells the Treasury Department to defer tax payments for affected individuals & businesses, & provide $200 billion in “additional liquidity.”
• March 12 – Biden Public Health Advisory Committee member Lisa Monaco replied “no” when asked if President Trump’s 30-day ban on travel from Europe is the right move.
• March 12 – Biden tweeted, “A wall will not stop the Coronavirus. Banning all travel from Europe — or any other part of the world — will not stop it.”
• March 13: President Trump tells the public he is declaring a national emergency over CoronaVirus, allowing him to access $42 billion in existing funds to fight the virus.
• March 16: White House issues 15 Days to slow the spread. Coronavirus Guidelines for America. Basically, shutting the economy for two weeks. An action like this was never done before in U.S. history.
• March 18:President Trump announces, temporary closure of the U.S.-Canada border to nonessential traffic, plans to invoke the Defense Production Act (DPA) (The DPA is something Democrats and the Liberal media claim the President never invokes-keep reading he does it a lot).
• March 18 – In response to President Trump’s tweet about his “very early decision to close the ‘borders’ from China,” Biden tweeted, “Stop the xenophobic fear-mongering.”
• March 19: The State Department issued a global level 4 health advisory, telling Americans to avoid all international travel due to Coronavirus.
• March 19: President Trump tells Bob Woodward, “I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down because I don’t want to create a panic.” The President meant that he may have spoken calmly, but as you can see, he was announcing drastic moves. But Woodward takes it as he wasn’t honest with America.

• March 20: If this didn’t convince people Coronavirus was severe, nothing else will. At the direction of President Trump, Tax Day for 2020 was moved from April 15 to July 15 for all taxpayers and businesses. Come on, Woodard—he moved Tax Day for Pete’s sake. Do you really think the American people are stupid and didn’t realize that Trump’s actions didn’t tell them that COVID was very serious?
• March 21: The FDA announced it had given emergency approval to a new coronavirus test that delivers results in hours, with an intended rollout of March 30. Adm. Giroir confirmed 10 million testing kits had been put into the commercial market from March 2 through March 14.
• March 23: President Trump signed an executive order invoking section 4512 of the Defense Production Act to prohibit the hoarding of vital medical supplies.
• March 24: President Trump announced the Army Corps of Engineers & the National Guard are constructing four hospitals and four medical centers in New York.
• March 26: White House announces the Federal Government is working with companies to speed up the production of potential coronavirus vaccines while those drugs are still in the trial phase.
• March 27: President Trump signed The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act into law. A $2.2 Trillion package
• March 27: President Trump signed a Defense Production Act (DPA) memorandum ordering General Motors (G.M.) “to accept, perform, and prioritize federal contractors for ventilators.
• March 27: President Trump signed an executive order allowing the military to activate members of the Selected Reserve and Ready Reserve to active duty to assist with the Federal response to the Coronavirus.
• March 31: President Trump announces 30 Days To slow the spread. The CDC guidelines that essentially closed the economy announced two weeks earlier will be extended through April 30
• April 2: President Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to direct 3M to produce more N95 respirator masks. He also invokes the DPA to help 6 companies (General Electric, Hill-Rom Holdings, Medtronic, ResMed, eRoyal Philips, and Vyaire Medical) get the supplies they need to make ventilators.
• April 3: President Trump signed a Presidential Memorandum blocking the export of N95 and other respirator masks, surgical masks, PPE gloves, and surgical gloves to ensure they are available in the U.S. – designating them as “scarce” under the Defense Production Act.
• April 4: President Trump announced that 1,000 members of the Defense Department’s Medical Corps will be deployed to New York to assist in the fight against Coronavirus.
• April 6: President Trump announces Army Corps of Engineers is building 22 field hospitals and alternative care sites in 18 states.
• April 13: Trump tells Woodward, “It’s so easily transmissible, you wouldn’t even believe it.” Woodward should believe it. Anybody who watched the press conferences for 15-Days to stop the spread, or 30-Days to stop the spread already knows that.