On Monday's Deadline: White House on MSNBC, host Nicolle Wallace was joined by fellow ex-Republican Steve Schmidt to laud a misleading new ad by Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden which attacks President Donald Trump's response to the pandemic.
Without doing any critical analysis of the ad, Wallace declared that "it's all true," and Schmidt, after calling the ad "entirely true," went on to wrongly claim that the U.S. response to the pandemic has been the "worst" among industrialized nations.
At 4:25 p.m. Eastern, Wallace introduced the segment by playing the Biden campaign ad. Toward the end, the narrator intoned:
CLIP OF AD: The travel ban he brags about -- Trump let in 40,000 travelers from China into America after he signed it -- not exactly airtight. Look around -- 22 million Americans are out of work, and we have more officially reported cases and deaths than any other country. Donald Trump left this country unprepared and unprotected for the worst public health and economic crisis in our lifetime. And now we're paying the price. All the negative ads in the world can't change the truth.
Instead of pointing out that Biden and other Democrats criticized the China travel ban (which excluded U.S. citizens and green card holders), or that Democrats had been slow to support other administration efforts early on, Wallace went to her disgruntled former Republican guest and proclaimed: "Steve Schmidt, it's a devastating political ad because it's all true."
Schmidt agreed as he began:
STEVE SCHMIDT, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it's entirely true, and no amount of negative ads -- as the Biden ad says -- is going to change the truth about Donald Trump's incompetency at the response to what the ad correctly says is the worst public health and economic crises of our lifetime. The simple truth, Nicolle, is this: Donald Trump ran for the President of the United States on two propositions. One: "I alone can fix it," and, two, "I'm going to make America great again." Well, it's three years on, we're slightly under 200 days from the election, more than 40,000 Americans are dead -- this didn't have to be so.
Toward the end of his rant, Schmidt also claimed that the U.S. response to the pandemic had been the "worst" compared to other industrialized countries:
STEVE SCHMIDT: And it should not go without mentioning that, as we look around the world and we look at the response of nearly every other industrialized country, the United States response is the worst. The ineptitude of the federal government shows everybody around the world -- from ally to adversary -- what a clown show American governance has become in the third decade of the 21st century.
But, in fact, most of the more advanced countries in Europe have per capita death rates higher than the U.S. As of Tuesday, April 21, the total confirmed number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. stands at 42,364, which, in a country of about 330 million residents, comes to 12.84 deaths per 100,000 residents. Italy, with a current official death toll of 24,648, has experienced a per capita death rate of 41.08 per 100,000.
In Spain, where the number of deaths is 21,282, the per capita rate is 45.28 per 100,000. France, with 20,796 deaths, has a per capita rate of 31.04. And in the United Kingdom, with a death toll of 17,337, the rate is 25.88. In Belgium, with 5,998 deaths and a population of about 11.5 million, the rate is 52.16 per 100,000. In the Netherlands, where the number of deaths stands at 3,916, the rate is 23.04.
In Switzerland, with 1,187 deaths, the per capita rate is on par with the U.S. at 13.85 per 100,000. Sweden has had 1,580 deaths, giving it a rate of 15.44, and Ireland has had 730 deaths, or a rate of 14.90. On the lower end, Germany, with 83 million residents, has only had 4,948 deaths, or a rate of 5.96 per 100,000, while Denmark, Norway, Finland and Portugal also have relatively low death rates. And in East Asia, countries like Taiwan and South Korea -- having lived through the SARS epidemic -- have kept their death rates low.
The numbers demonstrate there are plenty of industrialized nations where the per capita death toll has been substantially higher than in the U.S.
Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Monday, April 20, Deadline: White House on MSNBC:
Deadline: White House
4/20/2020
CLIP OF JOE BIDEN CAMPAIGN AD: The travel ban he brags about -- Trump let in 40,000 travelers from China into America after he signed it -- not exactly airtight. Look around -- 22 million Americans are out of work, and we have more officially reported cases and deaths than any other country. Donald Trump left this country unprepared and unprotected for the worst public health and economic crisis in our lifetime. And now we're paying the price. All the negative ads in the world can't change the truth.
(…)
NICOLLE WALLACE: Steve Schmidt, it's a devastating political ad because it's all true.
STEVE SCHMIDT, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Well, it's entirely true, and no amount of negative ads -- as the Biden ad says -- is going to change the truth about Donald Trump's incompetency at the response to what the ad correctly says is the worst public health and economic crises of our lifetime. The simple truth, Nicolle, is this: Donald Trump ran for the President of the United States on two propositions. One: "I alone can fix it," and, two, "I'm going to make America great again." Well, it's three years on, we're slightly under 200 days from the election, more than 40,000 Americans are dead -- this didn't have to be so.
It's so because of the ineptitude of the White House response, the constant denial, the constant downplaying of this so the danger of it -- pushing it away -- his serial unpreparedness and dishonesty with the American people about it. And now, great suffering has been unleashed in this country. There's more to come. The economic distress will make the unemployment numbers higher than the Great Depression. We're in a wipeout. Millions of small businesses in this country as none of the federal programs are working like they're supposed to work.
And so, four years on from the promise of "I'll make American great again," and "I alone can fix it," we can survey now the wreckage and the magnitude of the disaster in this country that has been wrought by the Trump presidency. And we see the consequences of putting an ill-tempered reality show television host who lacks the mental, the moral, and the intellectual skills and judgments to be the commander in chief of the most powerful nation on Earth.
And it should not go without mentioning that, as we look around the world and we look at the response of nearly every other industrialized country, the United States response is the worst. The ineptitude of the federal government shows everybody around the world -- from ally to adversary -- what a clown show American governance has become in the third decade of the 21st century.
