On Tuesday morning’s New Day, CNN co-host John Berman and fill-in co-host Erica Hill brought on political analyst Astead Herndon from The New York Times and political commentator Karen Finney to lie about Republican governors handling COVID-19 worse than Democrat governors. In order to create the narrative that Democrats are doing a better job at stopping the spread of coronavirus, the panel focused exclusively on states with Republican governors. Finney even accused Republican governors of “ignoring the facts on the ground.”
Berman initiated the Democratic propaganda by targeting Republican-led states:
This as new cases of coronavirus climb around the country, more than 40,000 cases yesterday alone. You can see the curve there rising and rising fast. Joining us now, CNN political analyst Astead Herndon and CNN political commentator Karen Finney. Friends, I want to put up the map. Sixteen states over the last 24 hours have announced they are pausing, or halting, or, you know, putting the brakes on reopening plans. And as we keep this map up, I want to draw your attention to Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Florida. What do these states have in common? These are states with Republican governors that are increasingly in play in the presidential election right now.
This was a blatant effort to make Democratic governors look better. Six of the 10 states which have had the most cases are led by Democratic governors. The three states which have had the most cases, New York, California, and New Jersey, all have Democratic governors.
Furthermore, compared to the Republican states that Berman mentioned, these Democratically-led states have had far more COVID-caused deaths. New York has had 31,776 deaths, New Jersey with 15,035, Massachusetts totaling 8,054, Illinois at 7,136, Pennsylvania with 6,695, and California seeing 6,083.
The death numbers for Arizona, Texas, Georgia, and Florida do not come close. Arizona has had 1,645 deaths, 2,842 in Texas, Georgia with 2,758, and Arizona losing 1,645. Texas has had the fourth most cases of any state at 166,703, but New York triples that number at 398,142 and California doubles it at 232,153. This is all despite that New York and California have comparable populations to both Florida and Texas.
However, what Berman wanted to further wasDemocratic Party talking points and fantasizing that liberal politicians better handled the coronavirus. It's all an attempt to exploit the health crisis to manipulate the upcoming election.
Herndon then continued the unabashed lying:
I see the interesting difference between politics and governing. These are all states, as you said, with Republican governors who are a little more conservative than we know the electorate is, and these are all Republican governors who have sought to appease the president and kind of listen to the loudest voices coming from the White House that have encouraged them to reopen and have encouraged them to kind of downplay the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. That became a - a political relationship that has become untenable as these new cases have risen. And so you see Governor Kemp, Abbott, Ducey and - and DeSantis having to go backwards now on what they were touting in terms of reopening because the situation has been so serious. They are going to face increased pressure to prioritize the public health experts over the politics.
Finney then upped the ante for falsehoods by accusing Republican governors of ignoring science:
And because it was left to the governors of the states, there -- as Astead pointed out, a different political relationship to this issue between the Democratic governors and the Republican governors who were trying to focus on appeasing the president, who were ignoring the facts on the ground. We have some Republican governors in states -- I'm thinking in the Midwest -- where we've seen outbreaks at meat packing plants and those numbers are not being reported fully. The challenge here for elected officials is, when the rubber meets the road and the cases are going up and behaviors are not matching what the science is telling us, like social distancing and wearing masks, and the president is polarizing those issues, which is resulting in less people wearing masks and more people getting sick, governors, these governors are accountable in a more direct way than the president, and they've got to take action.
If she wanted to actually talk about the truth and stop spreading false Democratic spin, Finney should have discussed the governor who was the guiltiest of “ignoring the facts on the ground.” That would be New York’s Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is responsible for as many as 12,000 thousand nursing home COVID deaths due to a March 25th executive order to send recovering COVID patients to nursing homes. The mortality rate for the virus is 10.4% for those between the ages of 65 to 74, 20.8% for those 75 to 84, and 30.1% for those over 85. But Finney didn't not want to talk about governors who have actually refused to make fact-based decisions, she wanted to create a narrative that favors Democrats.
As the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party, CNN was dead set on pinning the blame for the spread of the coronavirus on Republicans, even if doing so meant “ignoring the facts on the ground.”
This Democratic propaganda was brought to viewers by Dawn, Tractor Supply, and Liberty Mutual.
The full June 30th transcript is here:
CNN's New Day
06/30/20
6:44:47 AMJOHN BERMAN: This morning, two of the nation's leading health officials, Dr. Anthony Fauci and CDC Director Robert Redfield will testify at a Senate hearing. This as new cases of coronavirus climb around the country, more than 40,000 cases yesterday alone. You can see the curve there rising and rising fast. Joining us now, CNN political analyst Astead Herndon and CNN political commentator Karen Finney. Friends, I want to put up the map. Sixteen states over the last 24 hours have announced they are pausing, or halting, or, you know, putting the brakes on reopening plans. And as we keep this map up, I want to draw your attention to Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Florida. What do these states have in common? These are states with Republican governors that are increasingly in play in the presidential election right now. So, you have Republican governors now addressing this pandemic in a way that may or may not coincide with the White House agenda right now. Astead, as you look at this, what do you see playing out?
ASTEAD HERNDON: I see the interesting difference between politics and governing. These are all states, as you said, with Republican governors who are a little more conservative than we know the electorate is, and these are all Republican governors who have sought to appease the president and kind of listen to the loudest voices coming from the White House that have encouraged them to reopen and have encouraged them to kind of downplay the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic. That became a - a political relationship that has become untenable as these new cases have risen. And so you see Governor Kemp, Abbott, Ducey and -- and DeSantis having to go backwards now on what they were touting in terms of reopening because the situation has been so serious. They are going to face increased pressure to prioritize the public health experts over the politics. That also will be political pressure because they know that their states are ones that are -- that are -- that are kind of signposts for the general election. And if Trump's coronavirus response continues to get panned, as we see in poll after poll, they're not going to want that to spill into them.
ERICA HILL: That -- that response, as you point out, Astead, continues to get panned, but there -- there really isn't much of a cohesive federal response, Karen. So it is up to the states as they need to move forward. And the president said from the beginning, listen, he wants the states to handle it. The issue, though, of course, is now we're seeing how that's playing out and how one state bleeds into another.
KAREN FINNEY: Well, absolutely. And because it was left to the governors of the states, there -- as Astead pointed out, a different political relationship to this issue between the Democratic governors and the Republican governors who were trying to focus on appeasing the president, who were ignoring the facts on the ground. We have some Republican governors in states -- I'm thinking in the Midwest -- where we've seen outbreaks at meat packing plants and those numbers are not being reported fully. The challenge here for elected officials is, when the rubber meets the road and the cases are going up and behaviors are not matching what the science is telling us, like social distancing and wearing masks, and the president is polarizing those issues, which is resulting in less people wearing masks and more people getting sick, governors, these governors are accountable in a more direct way than the president, and they've got to take action. Whether or not this ends up being a smart political strategy, I think, for the president, for the fall, I think what we're seeing is it's not. I think he miscalculated on this one.
