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laura-ingraham-what-trump-needs-to-do-control-narrative-testing-04-21-2020.jpg

Fox News spins to “control the narrative” of Trump's failures on coronavirus testing

In reality, testing in the United States is a nightmare, with states begging for federal help. On Fox, hosts keep on insisting that the U.S. is “leading the world on testing, no country even close.”

Written by Eric Kleefeld

Published 04/22/20 2:14 PM EDT

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As it becomes clear that President Donald Trump’s reelection hopes could hit the rocks over the administration’s unfulfilled promises on mass testing for coronavirus, Fox News hosts are doubling down on their counter-strategy: effusive praise for how much Trump accomplished even in testing — despite his record of false claims, the botched rollout of early test kits, and the fact that key components of the testing progress that has been made were either made harder by the administration’s missteps or even actively opposed along the way.

In early March, Trump had declared confidently: “Anybody that wants a test can get a test” — a claim that was blatantly false. 

That same day, Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar had also promised “as many as 4 million tests” to be delivered to laboratories in a week’s time — a number that was soon undone both by defective tests and a refusal to use test kits sponsored by the World Health Organization, which Trump has sought to make a scapegoat in the crisis. (It was only a few days ago that the U.S. reached the 4-million mark in testing.)

On April 1, Vice President Mike Pence said that test kits were being delivered around the country, but blamed “an antiquated system where a state laboratory or CDC only had the capacity to process 40 to 60 tests a day.”

And on April 2, Trump said at one of his news briefing that the United States was testing “more than any other country in the world, both in terms of the raw number and also on a per capita basis, the most.” This was also a false statement, as the United States continued to lag behind countries such as Germany and South Korea in tests per capita.

As Business Insider explains, it is only recently that the United States caught up to become a top-tier country in testing per capita — passing South Korea, but still lagging behind Italy. (Though South Korea achieved its needed mass testing much earlier, enabling the country to reopen in a way that the United States can’t do yet.)

There is a new proposed round of federal aid to help states conduct testing — part of the recently announced compromise deal to replenish the fund for aid to small businesses. But that was a win for Democratic negotiators after the Trump administration had continued to oppose a national testing strategy, insisting it was the responsibility of individual states.

This came after Maryland's Republican governor Larry Hogan had to defend himself from criticism from Trump after buying a half a million test kits from a South Korean company. Republican and Democratic governors have been vocal about a lack of testing materials, like swabs and reagents.

But Fox News hosts are eager to ignore the Trump administration’s testing failures and recast them as successes. On the April 21 edition of his Fox News show, Sean Hannity declared that Trump deserved credit for “the greatest medical mobilization this country has ever seen” and said that the United States is “also leading the world on testing, no country even close. It has tested more of its citizens than any other country — many countries combined as a matter of fact.”

Video file

Citation From the April 22, 2020, edition of Fox News’ Hannity

Of course, it is easy for Hannity to obfuscate the point by saying that the United States has conducted more tests than “many countries combined” because the U.S. has the third largest total population in the world. And while this could perhaps be the “greatest medical mobilization this country has ever seen,” it took quite a while to get to this point, and there’s still a way to go.

Just this past Sunday night, Trump passed the blame for his adminstration’s testing failures on to state governors. “Testing is a local thing,” he said. “It's very important. It's great. But it's a local thing.” He also falsely claimed that the governors “don’t want to use all of the capacity that we’ve created.”

On the April 21 edition of Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle, host Laura Ingraham dismissed complaints from local officials and responded that no amount of testing will ever be enough for some people before the economy can reopen. She also continued the refrain that the U.S. is doing more tests “than any country on Earth.”

Video file

Citation From the April 21, 2020, edition of Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle

LAURA INGRAHAM (HOST): Number three, now some governors say that they can't reopen because they don't have enough tests. Well, how many? Well, some experts say we need to do 20 million tests a day — oh, that's realistic. We're doing roughly 120,000 tests a day right now, more than any country on Earth.

And number four, even if governors secure the tests, they're going to claim that they can't reopen until they have an army of tracers and trackers. Well, how many do they need? One estimate says they need 300,000. Well, how long would that take to set up? Maybe — I don't know, I can't even think of it, how long would that take to train all those people? Are state governors prepared to pay for it all? And why should Montana have to pay the bill for Bill de Bloviater's mistakes?

Instead, she said, Trump should “control the narrative on testing and tracking” and be clear that “the reasons that we shut down” to fight the coronavirus outbreak “no longer apply.”

Video file

Citation From the April 21, 2020, edition of Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle

LAURA INGRAHAM (HOST): What does the president need to do now? Number one, push back against any efforts to move the goalposts. We've saved the health care system in New York. No one is running short of ventilators. Those were the reasons that we shut down, and they no longer apply.

Number two, control the narrative on testing and tracking. Keep explaining to the press, to the governors, and to members of Congress that the U.S. government has made testing and tracking progress, and they're going to continue to. Emphasize two key points — our efforts have been world-class, and current testing and tracking efforts are sufficient to allow significant portions of the country to reopen. Plus, they got $25 billion today for testing and tracking, the states did in the new deal.

As noted above, the new funding to states for testing and tracking was actually a Democratic priority — and only a concession by Republicans after Trump had opposed it earlier. But that’s not exactly the “narrative” that Ingraham wants Trump to control.

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In This Article

  • Coronavirus (COVID-19)

    Covid-19 / Coronavirus
  • Sean Hannity

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  • Laura Ingraham

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