Mike Pence Warns Agains Chinese Investments New York Times
Pence Will Control All Coronavirus Messaging From Health Officials
The White Firm'southward endeavour to impose a more disciplined approach to communications about the virus was undermined by President Trump, who complained the news media was overstating the threat.
WASHINGTON — The White House moved on Thursday to tighten control of coronavirus messaging by regime health officials and scientists, directing them to coordinate all statements and public appearances with the office of Vice President Mike Pence, according to several officials familiar with the new approach.
Merely on a day that the White Firm sought to display a more disciplined strategy to the administration's communications about the virus, Mr. Trump used an evening event honoring African-American History Month to rail confronting the news media, challenge it is overstating the threat, and to congratulate himself for keeping the number of cases depression.
"I think it's an incredible achievement what our country's washed," Mr. Trump said, noting that he had moved apace to ban travel from China afterwards the emergence of the virus. Fifty-fifty though a total of threescore people infected with the coronavirus are in the United States, he ignored all simply the 15 who did not initially contract it overseas.
"Xv people is almost, I would say, a miracle," the president bragged.
The comments came simply a few hours after Mr. Pence convened a meeting of the coronavirus task force composed of some of the nation's top public health officials. The vice president fabricated it clear that they would written report to him.
"I'grand leading the task force," Mr. Pence told reporters at the Department of Wellness and Human Services, even as he promised to rely on the guidance of experts.
Mr. Trump announced Wed evening that Mr. Pence would coordinate the government's response to the public health threat while playing downward the firsthand danger from the virus that is spreading rapidly across the world.
Officials insist Mr. Pence's goal is non to command what experts and other officials say, merely to make sure their efforts are coordinated, after days of confusion with various administration officials making contradictory statements on television.
But the attempt to demonstrate a unified administration phonation was undercut early in the twenty-four hours, when Mr. Pence said that he had selected Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the director of the U.s.a. attempt to combat H.I.Five. and AIDS, to serve equally the coronavirus response coordinator for the White House, enlisting an experienced scientist and md to address the potential spread of the virus.
The announcements of the roles of the vice president and Dr. Birx were intended to evidence that Mr. Trump and those around him are taking seriously the potential threat to the health of Americans. Aides said the president wanted governors and members of Congress to take a single point person to communicate with, eliminating whatsoever jockeying for power in a decentralized situation.
But Dr. Birx is now the 3rd person to have been designated every bit the administration'south primary coronavirus official, along with Mr. Pence and Alex Yard. Azar II, the secretarial assistant of wellness and human services.
Mr. Trump said Wednesday that "Mike is going to be in charge, and Mike will report dorsum to me." Mr. Pence said it would be Dr. Birx. Mr. Azar, for his part, remains the chairman of the authorities's coronavirus job strength.
The vice president's move to control the messaging about coronavirus appeared to be aimed at preventing the kind of conflicting statements that take plagued the assistants's response.
The latest instance occurred Thursday evening, when the president said that the virus could get worse or meliorate in the days and weeks ahead, but that nobody knows, contradicting Dr. Anthony South. Fauci, one of the country's leading experts on viruses and the manager of the National Establish of Allergy and Infectious Disease.
At the coming together with Mr. Pence on Thursday, Dr. Fauci described the seriousness of the public wellness threat facing Americans, maxim that "this virus has adapted extremely well to homo species" and noting that it appeared to have a higher mortality charge per unit than influenza.
"Nosotros are dealing with a serious virus," Dr. Fauci said.
Dr. Fauci has told associates that the White House had instructed him not to say anything else without clearance.
Prototype
The new White Firm approach came as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledged Thursday that a California woman with coronavirus was made to wait days before she was tested for an infection because of the agency'due south restrictive criteria.
And despite Mr. Trump's efforts to calm jittery investors, stock markets plunged again Thursday. The Due south&P 500 fell 4.iv percent, the worst single-24-hour interval slide for the market since Baronial 2011 and leaving it ten percent lower than it was a week earlier.
The president'south decision to appoint Mr. Pence to pb the coronavirus response came after several days in which his aides grappled with whether to name a "coronavirus arbiter."
Mr. Trump said on Wed that he was pleased with Mr. Azar's performance, calling the team that he has led "totally brilliant." But White House aides, led by Mick Mulvaney, the president'south acting chief of staff, had debated for days whether the assistants needed a point person to be the face of the response.
The decision to put Mr. Pence in charge was made on Wed later the president told some people that the vice president did not "have anything else to do," according to people familiar with Mr. Trump's comments.
Dr. Birx has spent more than three decades working on H.I.V./AIDS immunology, vaccine research and global health, co-ordinate to the White House, which said in a statement that she would "bring her communicable diseases, immunologic, vaccine enquiry and interagency analogous capacity to this position."
The president's option of Mr. Pence — and the determination to name Dr. Birx as the coordinator for the response — further erodes Mr. Azar'due south traditional office as the nation's acme health official in accuse of directing the government's response to a medical crisis. Mr. Trump has told people that he considers Mr. Azar to be also "alarmist" well-nigh the virus.
Mr. Azar denied reports that he had non been consulted well-nigh the decision to bring in Mr. Pence earlier the president'south announcement Wednesday evening. He told lawmakers on Thursday during a House Ways and Means Committee hearing that when he was informed of Mr. Pence'south selection, "I said, quote, 'that's genius.'"
Image
Officials also announced that Mr. Pence was expanding the coronavirus job strength to include "key administration officials," including Dr. Jerome Chiliad. Adams, the surgeon general, as well as the president's superlative two economic advisers, Larry Kudlow, the director of the National Economic Council, and Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretarial assistant. The chore force is made up of more than a dozen peak assistants officials and cabinet secretaries.
An administration official said Thursday night that Mr. Pence had discussed the coronavirus with several governors, including Andrew Cuomo, Democrat of New York; Greg Abbott, Republican of Texas; Larry Hogan, Republican of Maryland; Pete Ricketts, Republican of Nebraska; Jay Inslee, Democrat of Washington; and Gavin Newsom, Democrat of California.
The conclusion to bring in Mr. Pence was not without controversy.
Critics of the vice president pointed to Mr. Pence's tape on public health when he was the governor of Indiana as evidence that he was non the right person to pb the government's response to a health crisis. Democrats noted that Mr. Pence was blamed for aggravating a severe AIDS outbreak among intravenous drug users when he opposed calls for a clean needle exchange program on the grounds it would encourage more than drug use.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters that she had told Mr. Pence direct that she questioned his new role given that equally governor, he had "slashed" the public health budget in Indiana.
"I spoke with the vice president this morning, made some of these concerns known to him," she said. "We accept always had a very candid relationship and I expressed to him the concern that I had of his being in this position."
Annie Karni and Emily Cochrane contributed reporting.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/us/politics/us-coronavirus-pence.html
0 Response to "Mike Pence Warns Agains Chinese Investments New York Times"
Post a Comment