As the United States surpassed over 200,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and over 5,000 deaths, Trump declined to reopen the federal health care exchange at Healthcare.gov for a special enrollment period.
While free testing for COVID-19 has been authorized, there are no provisions or support for Americans without healthcare that require further treatment.
As of 2018, over 28,000,000 Americans were uninsured.
Trump has repeatedly claimed that he is responsible for saving provisions for pre-existing conditions. However, there is an ongoing lawsuit by Republican states to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which instituted the provisions.
Mini Mike Bloomberg is spending a lot of money on False Advertising. I was the person who saved Pre-Existing Conditions in your Healthcare, you have it now, while at the same time winning the fight to rid you of the expensive, unfair and very unpopular Individual Mandate…..
On February 26, 2020, Trump appointed Vice President Mike Pence as leader of the federal government’s task force on COVID-19. At the time, the United States reported a total of 58 cases. One month later, the US reported a total of over 100,000.
Pence drew criticism when he toured the Mayo Clinic on April 28 without a mask, noticeably being the only one present without one. By then, the US reported over 1 million total cases.
Pence, former governor of Indiana, has a controversial past regarding his record on public health and science:
Smoking
In 2000, Pence claimed in an op-ed about smoking,
Time for a quick reality check. Despite the hysteria from the political class and the media, smoking doesn’t kill.
The CDC considers smoking the leading cause of preventable death in the United States.
Amid an AIDS outbreak in his state, after a 2015 meeting with officials from the Indiana State Department of Health and the CDC, Pence said he would “go home and pray on it.” A few days later, Pence allowed for the opening of an HIV testing clinic and a non-state funded needle exchange program. However, on the same day, he signed a bill into law that increased criminal punishment for possession of syringes without a prescription, even if unused. Within two years, 217 AIDS cases had been attributed to the outbreak. Critics claimed that Pence’s long-held attempts to close down Planned Parenthood, a leading HIV testing resource in the state, helped lead to the outbreak in the first place.
As a result of the outbreak, former CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden said that Austin, Indiana had a higher incidence of HIV than “any country in sub-Saharan Africa,” and “more people infected with HIV through injection drug use than in all of New York City last year.”
In a 2002 interview with Wolf Blitzer, Pence claimed about condoms and their ability to prevent the spread of disease,
I just simply believe the only truly safe sex, Wolf, as the president believes, is no sex…The problem is it was too modern of an answer, Wolf. It was — it truly was a modern, liberal answer to a problem that parents like me are facing all over America, and frankly, all over the world.
Pence’s website in which he published his views on smoking also espoused support for conversation therapy. In writing about the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, Pence’s site stated,
Congress should support the reauthorization of the Ryan White Care Act only after completion of an audit to ensure that federal dollars were no longer being given to organizations that celebrate and encourage the types of behaviors that facilitate the spreading of the HIV virus. Resources should be directed toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.
While Pence has also called being gay a “choice” and “learned behavior,” there is no known evidence of his otherwise specifically voicing support for conversion therapy.
Climate Change
Pence has repeatedly deflected questions on his beliefs regarding climate change.
Pence has long criticized evolution, espousing a flawed understanding of what constitutes a scientific theory. In 2002, he gave a speech to the House of Representatives, where he demanded that evolution be taught alongside religious alternatives:
Charles Darwin did offer a theory on the origin of species, which we’ve come to know as evolution. Charles Darwin never thought of evolution as anything other than a theory. He hoped that some day it would be proven by the fossil record, but did not live to see that, nor have we. …let us demand that educators around America teach evolution not as fact, but as theory.
He has also avoided directly answering the question of whether he believes in evolution in later interviews.
Trump golfed January 18, January 19, February 1, February 15, March 7, and March 8 amid the COVID19 pandemic. He also held 11 rallies between January and March.
By the end of the March 8 weekend Trump spent golfing, there were over 500 reported cases in the United States. That Monday, he accused the media and Democrats of working to “inflame” the situation via tweet.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump finalized changes to Obama-era automobile emission rules. Whereas automakers were to increase fuel economy by an average of 5% per year through 2026, it was changed to 1.5%. The Trump administration noted that the change would be the equivalent of 2 billion additional barrels of oil consumed and nearly a billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
My Administration is helping U.S. auto workers by replacing the failed Obama Emissions Rule. Impossible to satisfy its Green New Deal Standard; Lots of unnecessary and expensive penalties to car buyers!
In the weeks preceding the unconstrained outbreak in the United States, Trump repeatedly downplayed the threat of the virus and claimed that his administration had done a great job in containing it.
China has been working very hard to contain the Coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American People, I want to thank President Xi!
Cryin’ Chuck Schumer is complaining, for publicity purposes only, that I should be asking for more money than $2.5 Billion to prepare for Coronavirus. If I asked for more he would say it is too much. He didn’t like my early travel closings. I was right. He is incompetent!
Among other remarks, he also claimed that warm weather would kill the virus, without evidence, saying, “Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.” He also claimed about US cases that “We’re going down, not up. We’re going very substantially down, not up.”
The remarks were all made in late February. By March 1, there were 98 confirmed cases in the US. Mid-March, Trump said he’d score his administration’s response to COVID19 a 10/10. By the end of March, there were over 160,000 confirmed cases.
Trump told his biographer that he “always felt that I was in the military” because of his time at New York Military Academy, a boarding school he had been sent to in his youth. He explained that he’d received “more training militarily than a lot of the guys that go into the military.”
Trump made the remark after being gifted the medal by a veteran wounded in Iraq.
The comment shed doubt on whether Trump knew what a Purple Heart was awarded for, as few wish to be injured or killed while serving in order to receive the medal.
A Purple Heart medal. Sarah Blansett / Military.com
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and US stimulus packages, Democrats pushed for increased funding for absentee and vote-by-mail options. The proposal was for $400 million to be distributed through the federal Election Assistance Commission and subsequently distributed to the states to ensure that voting would be possible for all, with equal access, even if the pandemic persisted. Critics said the funding suggested was still far too little for such a nation-wide initiative.
During a Fox & Friends interview, Trump declared, “The things they had in there were crazy. They had things – levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
Trump openly admitting if we made voting easier in America, Republicans wouldn't win elections
Trump: "The things they had in there were crazy. They had levels of voting, that if you ever agreed to it you'd never have a Republican elected in this country again." pic.twitter.com/x5HmX6uogo
When asked about his comments at a press conference, Trump said, “I think that mail in voting is a terrible thing. I think if you vote, you should go, and even the concept of early voting is not the greatest.” Several states allow for voting by mail, and Oregon, Washington, and Colorado do so exclusively.
He had also questioned the validity of mail-in ballots during the campaign.
After a 2019 mass shooting in El Paso that left 22 dead and 24 injured, Trump visited the scene to meet with survivors and first responders.
In one of the photos tweeted by wife Melania, he had a smile and a thumbs up as he stood next to her while she held an infant that had been orphaned by the killer. The infant suffered broken fingers as his mother collapsed on him to shield him from the attack.
I met many incredible people in Dayton, Ohio & El Paso, Texas yesterday. Their communities are strong and unbreakable. @potus and I stand with you! pic.twitter.com/SHzV6zcVKR
