During a Fox News appearance this week, longtime Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway went on a wild tirade against New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio for his supposed overly lax handling of the Coronavirus crisis — and host Martha McCallum pointed out that President Donald Trump himself has done many of the things which Conway was dinging the NYC leader for supposedly indulging in. De Blasio tried to encourage New Yorkers to go on with their lives, Conway noted — but in late February, Trump went to far that he called concern over the virus a hoax.
Conway, unsurprisingly, did not take well to the notion that her boss had anything in common with the oh-so-terrible mayor of the oh-so-scary New York City, breathlessly insisting that there’s “no comparison” between the two leaders.
She insisted:
‘You had Mayor de Blasio last night, and he said — he lied to America, he said that he’s been on top of this from the beginning… on March 16th, he went to a gym, on March 5th, he’s taking the subway. It’s totally irresponsible, and it is the epicenter now, and I think it shows you the contrast in leadership, when you have feckless leaders, or you have a president who’s publicly facing every single day getting people the information they need.’
First of all, it’s worth noting that McCallum didn’t even mention de Blasio. Out of the blue, Conway launched into mocking the mayor and lavishing praise on her own boss.
The host pointed out:
‘In terms of the things that you’re mentioning, you would probably match up — some of those early March statements from him — with also similarly optimistic statements from President Trump.’
Indeed — Trump said at one point, without any evidence to back him up, that the virus would supposedly disappear like a “miracle.” Surprise — it didn’t.
Conway breathlessly insisted:
‘There have been groups meeting on this all along. And in fact, today is the one month anniversary of I think the task force being announced… So we’ve been on top of this, and I will not compare Mayor de Blasio to President Trump.’
Watch:
Oh wow! Meetings! Those solve all of the problems that medical professionals and Americans at-large have been facing across the country! Obviously, in reality, they do not. States across the country have suffered severe shortages of supplies like ventilators, which are needed because the Coronavirus is a respiratory disease.
During her appearance, Conway also praised the stimulus bill that’s been developed in Congress, which she claimed was a part of the country “coming together in a totally non-partisan fashion to give relief who know that they’re in economic dire straits suddenly through no fault of their own.” In reality, Trump has quickly turned the situation into a partisan fight. He’s insisted that he’s concerned about economic success because he’s concerned about the effect it could have on his re-election chances, and he’s insisted — without any evidence whatsoever — that his opponents want economic calamity so his re-election chances take a hit.
He’s politicizing the turmoil.
