Taking The Narrative Fight To The Media

AP featured image
President Donald J. Trump listens as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony S. Fauci delivers remarks during a coronavirus update briefing Sunday, March 29, 2020, in the Rose Garden at the White House. (Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks)
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Most folks on the Right have come to enjoy the daily skewering the President delivers to the media on a daily basis.

I’m not one of them because I think the media could be delivered their comeuppance in a far more comprehensive and effective fashion – especially in the process of destroying the numerous false narratives about the Trump Administration and its addressing of the Wuhan Virus they try to push on a daily basis.

Why use a single round when a hellfire missile is available?For better optics (and rambling tangents), my recommendation would be to have Mark Meadows, Kayleigh McElnany or even Jared Kushner give a speech/presentation on the timeline of the pandemic vis-a-vis the Administration’s actions (including Trump’s supposed “downplaying”), versus the rest of the world.

This really shouldn’t be difficult – 99% of it is public information and simple logic. And it’s all just a search engine away – there are literally hundreds of webpages, documents, pictures and videos.

Dan Crenshaw simply pointed out items that are public knowledge and he is being celebrated right now for tearing Bill Maher apart on this issue. And he actually barely scratched the surface.

Dr. Birx and Dr. Fauci are already on record pointing at the lies that were coming from China as being the major driver in the entire world – experts in over 180 countries included – not realizing what was going on before it was too late.

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We have Fauci on February 29 on video saying people could go on cruises – and there is video of him as late as March 4 saying the situation is not as dire as it eventually turned out to be.

It requires nothing more than listing the actions of the Administration and the dates they were taken in response to the virus, a few tell-tale video clips and images, and some infographics. Everything can be assembled into an ordinary PowerPoint document.

At a minimum, these are the points that need to be made;

  1. China’s lack of transparency and lying misled and greatly sabotaged the entire world’s response to the Wuhan Virus. As Dr. Birx said, the numbers of provided by China at the onset described a virus with a characteristic profile that looked like SARS (which is also a coronavirus).
  2. The President’s statements on the virus – including those supposedly “downplaying” the virus – has, at all times, tracked with those of the experts, including Dr. Fauci, which were based on the known information at the time. Again, the lack of candor and false information from China about the true nature of the virus is wholly responsible for this.
  3. The lack of information from China meant the Administration had no actionable information about the contagiousness, mortality, incubation time, symptomology, etc. of the new virus. Shutting down the economy with such a lack of data when only 14 people were known to be infected and none were in critical condition is insane.
  4. The Administration, spearheaded by the White House Corona Virus Task Force, was actively monitoring the situation, seeking information, tasking various principals and agencies, and reaching out to the private sector to meet the potential threat throughout the month of February. Millions of items of key equipment produced and the logistical pipeline that delivered them in March were the result of work done in February.
  5. To say or imply that the Administration did “nothing” in the month of February is a callous, partisan, slanderous allegation that actively negates all the work done by the task force and their staff and is both factually and morally wrong. The fact that numerous journalists and network talking heads have been deliberately spreading this lie is a disgrace.
  6. There’s no magic wand. Everything takes time. Research and development of tests and testing kits, validation by the CDC and FDA, reconfiguring and retooling factories for mass production of equipment and protective gear, setting up logistics for delivery of these items, test administration and processing, setting up communication lines at all levels of government and the private sector, establishing safety protocols for health care workers and essential staff, investigating and validating therapeutic treatments all while reviewing and clearing up regulatory logjams. For the media to claim this was “slow” is nothing but bad faith.
  7. Explain the difference between how the Federal Government’s disease outbreak response was set up over the last few decades and the changes made by the Trump Administration in response to the Wuhan Virus pandemic.
  8. Explain the Administration’s approach to testing – prioritized for hotpots with high accuracy, high processing throughput using existing technology and testing capacity, and with the deliberate aim of decreasing the difficulty on the patient, risk to health care workers and PPE burn rate in the specimen collection process. This involves research and development, validation by the FDA and CDC, and then manufacturing and distribution. The United States’ massive testing numbers are no accident but the result of a lot of hard work.
  9. Explain the uniqueness of New York City and how it became such a hot-spot i.e. population density, commuter traffic, subways, the sheer volume of travellers into JFK. Compare to Frankfurt.
  10. The Administration has prioritized the development of therapeutics and has, from the onset, set up and accelerated numerous trials over the course of a few weeks so Americans and the rest of the world are able to return to work and their lives as they knew it as soon as they possibly can.
  11. The Administration’s ban on flights from China to the United States meant over a thousand flights carrying hundreds of thousands of people – including large numbers from Wuhan – were stopped from arriving in the country. As three times as many flights from China land on the West Coast, many lives were saved by the President’s action. Numbers should be provided here.
  12. Using video clips and images of headlines and tweets on the timeline, demonstrate that with only a few notable exceptions, no institution has been less helpful to the Administration’s fight against the coronavirus than the news media. Over the past few weeks the media has repeatedly used unvetted, misleading and false information, some entirely fabricated, in order to forment panic for the sake of partisan politics. Some outlets now refuse to carry White House press briefings live – after years of demanding them – in the middle of an outbreak.
  13. Highlight and denounce the newly sprung up cottage industry among journalists and other Democrat activists attacking Deborah Birx and Jerome Adams.
  14. List and debunk the various items of fake news (with pictures, tweets, clips, etc. on the timeline) promoted by the media;
    1. Experts – particularly Dr. Fauci – are being “silenced” and were not listened to early on.
    2. The President “fired” the NSC’s Pandemic Response Team.
    3. The President cut the CDC budget.
    4. The Administration rejected COVID-19 test kits provided by the WHO.
    5. US Intelligence warned the Administration about the virus but the warnings were ignored.
    6. The President called the virus a “hoax.”
    7. People died for lack of ventilators.
    8. The President denied needed equipment to states to punish their Governors.
    9. The task force “did nothing” throughout February while people were dying (4 & 5).
    10. Hydroxychloroquine is a uniquely dangerous and untested drug that kills hundreds everyday.
    11. No evidence exists anywhere in the world that Hydroxychloroquine – in combination with other drugs – is effective against COVID-19.
    12. The President has a financial stake in Hydroxychloroquine.
    13. The President sent crucial supplies of ventilators and PPE to China.
    14. The ban on flights from China made no difference.
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If challenged to explain the need for this message, bluntly respond that the media, simply to further a partisan political agenda, has attacked and denigrated every effort, initiative, and program by the Administration to combat the virus and pronounced them as failures before they even began, and even after they’ve succeeded.

The Administration has every right to counter the media’s attempts to rewrite history and spread panic, despair and division, and to provide the American people with the facts, hope and confidence that this crisis is being dealt with, progress is being made daily on every front and this will soon pass.

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