Passing off blame for one’s own failures seems endemic within the Republican Party as led by President Donald Trump. During an appearance this Tuesday on The Hugh Hewitt Show, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) blamed the Democrat-led impeachment proceedings against Trump for distracting the federal government from the emerging Coronavirus threat in the early weeks of 2020. Never mind that almost a month after the impeachment proceedings concluded, Trump pompously proclaimed to a South Carolina rally crowd that Coronavirus concern was a “hoax.” To McConnell, it’s all the Democrats’ fault.
McConnell told Hewitt, in reference to the Coronavirus:
‘It came up while we were tied down in the impeachment trial. And I think it diverted the attention of the government because everything every day was all about impeachment.’
In fact, as a recent report from POLITICO outlines, on the very same day that the impeachment proceedings drew to a close, Congressional Democrats began pushing the administration to secure emergency funding to deal with the Coronavirus threat. According to that same report, there was so much concern about the administration’s inaction that Congressional Democrats even discussed the possibility of going it alone and approving Coronavirus response funding without the administration’s blessing, which would have been unprecedented. These developments prove that McConnell’s assertion that impeachment distracted the government from action is false.
Even some figures within McConnell’s own party began raising an alarm about the Coronavirus before the impeachment proceedings drew to a close with Trump’s Senate acquittal on February 5. Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton began raising an alarm about the virus in January — although he funneled it through his completely unnecessary racist antagonism against the Chinese.
Cotton also appeared on Hewitt’s radio show this Tuesday, where he echoed McConnell’s demonstrably false claim that impeachment is to blame for government inaction.
As he put it, addressing the host:
‘The first time I recall talking about the China virus in the media was on your show, probably late in January and I had started studying the problem in mid-January. I have to tell you that in mid-January and late-January, unfortunately, Washington, especially the Congress was consumed with another matter — you may recall the partisan impeachment of the president.’
In fact, more than a month after the impeachment proceedings concluded, POLITICO reported that Trump was hesitating to issue a national emergency declaration because he worried about how the move could impact the public image of his administration. As the publication put it, Trump was worried that the declaration — which he eventually issued — “could hamper his narrative that the coronavirus is similar to the seasonal flu,” which, it’s important to note, is a false narrative. The current Coronavirus outbreak has a fatality rate significantly higher than that of the ordinary flu.
As of early Tuesday afternoon, almost 175,000 Americans have been infected by the virus, and the U.S. hit 3,400 deaths and counting, thereby becoming the third country to pass the official death toll in China, where the Coronavirus first emerged. Others to pass China’s toll include Italy and Spain. Amidst this turmoil, McConnell, Cotton, and others, are sticking to their angry politicking.
