Reports from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) show that employees from the Center for Disease Control prefer Democratic and even progressive-leaning candidates. Since 2005, more than 550 employees for the agency donated more than $285,000 to the Democratic Party and their candidates, the Daily Caller reported.
The number one recipient for the donations was ActBlue, the online fundraising platform the Democratic Party utilizes. Other popular candidates and committees included Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, Bernie Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign, Elizabeth Warren's 2020 presidential campaign and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Out of all the contributions made from CDC employees, only five were sent to a Republican Political Action Committee (PAC) or candidate. Three of the five contributions were made to President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign. The total of the donations made to the Trump campaign totaled a little more than $1,000.
According to the Daily Caller, campaign contributions flooded into progressive candidates in March when the World Health Organization declared the Wuhan coronavirus as a pandemic.
"...the total amount of money employees contributed to left-leaning causes by the end of the [March] was nearly three times higher than the previous five-year average," the Caller reported. "In addition, the total amount of contributions more than doubled compared to the previous five-year monthly average."
President Donald Trump and the CDC have been odds with one another over Wuhan coronavirus on multiple instances. The president has expressed his frustration with the government agency multiple times on Twitter:
For decades the @CDCgov looked at, and studied, its testing system, but did nothing about it. It would always be inadequate and slow for a large scale pandemic, but a pandemic would never happen, they hoped. President Obama made changes that only complicated things further.....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 13, 2020
.... Their response to H1N1 Swine Flu was a full scale disaster, with thousands dying, and nothing meaningful done to fix the testing problem, until now. The changes have been made and testing will soon happen on a very large scale basis. All Red Tape has been cut, ready to go!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 13, 2020
One area where Trump and the CDC are at odds with one another is on reopening of schools.
I disagree with @CDCgov on their very tough & expensive guidelines for opening schools. While they want them open, they are asking schools to do very impractical things. I will be meeting with them!!!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 8, 2020
For the most part, however, the president has praised the CDC's work and even encouraged Americans to follow the CDC's guidelines, especially early on in the pandemic.
CDC and my Administration are doing a GREAT job of handling Coronavirus, including the very early closing of our borders to certain areas of the world. It was opposed by the Dems, “too soon”, but turned out to be the correct decision. No matter how well we do, however, the.....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 26, 2020
....Democrats talking point is that we are doing badly. If the virus disappeared tomorrow, they would say we did a really poor, and even incompetent, job. Not fair, but it is what it is. So far, by the way, we have not had one death. Let’s keep it that way!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 26, 2020
The @CDCgov has published guidelines on https://t.co/p9j7kZsD7b to enable every American to respond to this epidemic and to protect themselves, their families and their communities.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 14, 2020
The individual Governors of States, and local officials, must step up their efforts on drive up testing and testing sights, working in conjunction with @CDCgov and the Federal Government!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 15, 2020
Thank you @DeptofDefense, @USACEHQ, @USNationalGuard, @FEMA, and @CDCgov! https://t.co/p9j7kZsD7b https://t.co/qmUE7F2E5D
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 3, 2020
It seems like no matter what President Trump did, Democrats were going to use this pandemic to their advantage. They can claim their contributions are because of what Trump did or didn't do but their pattern of donating to Democratic and progressive causes says otherwise. This pandemic just pushed them to donate even more.