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Covid-19… The Spectacular Trump Impeachment Defense.

The newest in a long line of defenses against criticism of Donald Trump’s inadequate response to the Covis-19 pandemic is that impeachment hampered his response to deal with the oncoming crisis.

OK. Let’s look at that.

The impeachment process started on December 18th 2019, and ended on February 5th, 2020. Through the procedure in the House, the Trump administration did not participate; no effort or time was taken by the executive to participate in the hearings. They simply withheld all evidence and proclaimed the whole thing a “hoax”. When it got to the Senate, the only time they took was to meet with Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and then present a defense of nothing but talking points on January 25. On January 31st, the Senate had their final in-house session on impeachment, with no involvement from the executive branch. The final vote occurred on February 5th, again requiring no involvement from the executive branch.

Meanwhile, from Trump’s own campaign website detailing all the beautiful things he’s done to lead the fight against the Coronavirus spread, these are the things that his own team says he had done to that point:

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 coronavirus.

January 7: The CDC established a coronavirus incident management system to better share and respond to information about the virus.

January 11: The CDC issued a Level I travel health notice for Wuhan, China.

January 17: The CDC began 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 20: Dr. Fauci announces the National Institutes of Health is already working on the development of a vaccine for the coronavirus.

January 21: The CDC activated its emergency operations center to provide ongoing support to the coronavirus response.

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 III travel health notice urging Americans to avoid all nonessential travel to China due to the coronavirus.

January 29: The White House announced the formation of the Coronavirus Task Force to help monitor and contain the spread of the virus and provide updates to the President. 

January 31: The Trump Administration:

• Declared the coronavirus a public health emergency.
   
• Announced Chinese travel restrictions.
   
• Suspended entry into the United States for foreign nationals who pose a risk of transmitting the coronavirus.

January 31: The Department of Homeland Security took critical steps to funnel all flights from China into just 7 domestic U.S. airports.

February 3: The CDC had a team ready to travel to China to obtain critical information on the novel coronavirus, but were in the U.S. awaiting permission to enter by the Chinese government.

February 4: President Trump vowed in his State of the Union Address to “take all necessary steps” to protect Americans from the coronavirus.

OK. So which is it?

Did the executive branch do a great job handling the spread of the virus as the campaign is telling us? Or did the impeachment cause the President not to act, which goes against what the campaign is saying on the website???

The dumbest thing is… Most of the criticism of how Trump has handled this crisis concern events that happened and steps not taken AFTER impeachment was long over.