The media loves to say "gotcha" to President Trump and his associates. But when it comes to liberal lawmakers' hypocrisy, the media coincidentally miss them every time.
The New York Times's Peter Baker thought he caught the president redhanded by contrasting Trump's February narrative, when he said that COVID-19 was "like a flu," to this week when he said the coronavirus is "vicious" and is "not the flu." His new tone was the result of new data. RNC spokeswoman Liz Harrington thought it was interesting that Baker conveniently forgot about Pelosi's changing narrative. In late February, the Democratic leader was still urging San Francisco residents to dine out in Chinatown.
Nancy Pelosi, Feb. 24: "Come to Chinatown. Precautions have been taken...We think it's very safe and want others to come."https://t.co/vxyv6WzP7Q
— Elizabeth Harrington (@LizRNC) March 31, 2020
Where's your gotcha tweet on this, Peter? @peterbakernyt pic.twitter.com/Pa41NRNf6k
— Elizabeth Harrington (@LizRNC) March 31, 2020
This was a perfect "gotcha" if we ever saw one. The speaker has been railing off on the president for downplaying the crisis, when she herself was telling people to go out and be merry just a few weeks earlier. Unsurprisingly, her hypocrisy was met with crickets.
The media has hurried to accuse Trump of a slow response. But as coronavirus task force member Dr. Anthony Fauci noted at Tuesday's White House press briefing, the president's early actions to ban some travel from Asia most assuredly saved lives.
"I believe we acted very, very early," Fauci said.
House Speaker Pelosi had other priorities.
“On January 15, the first day there was an American case in the United States, what was Nancy Pelosi doing? She was handing out her impeachment pens," Harrington said on BBC. “Just a week later President Trump had already set up a task force to deal with this crisis.”