The liberal media insist they and the Democratic Party were not politicizing the growing coronavirus outbreak, but during their Tuesday primary night coverage, CNN’s panel of liberals took some time to fantasize about how there will be, as former 2020 hopeful Andrew Yang put it, “a real hunger for” the competency of the Obama administration from “many, many Americans if the coronavirus crisis continues to grow.”
The twisted discussion was sparked by host Anderson Cooper as he spoke about how, “We've also never seen a situation like this, certainly in modern times, in terms of a potential pandemic influencing the next couple of months in a way that's kind of hard to even imagine.”
Though Cooper said he hoped things wouldn’t develop into an extremely dire situation around the country, that didn’t stop him from discussing how the Democratic candidates would tackle it. To the amusement of the panel:
COOPER: I mean, obviously there is the difference on health care between Sanders and Biden, but if -- You know, if hospitals are overwhelmed, if, you know, the military is called in, if people are being triaged in school gymnasiums on respirators or whatever, however bad it may get, and let's hope it doesn't --
ANDREW YANG: Nothing makes you appreciate a functional government like a global pandemic.
DAVID AXELROD: Yes, I've always said that.
YANG: Yes, no.
AXELROD: No, you're right.
“I mean, none of us, there are very few people who have seen what happens when a society, you know, has the potential to really burst at the seams,” Cooper added.
Yang, who had endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden earlier in the night, argued that a Biden presidency wouldn’t just be “a return to moral normalcy, but it's also going to begin to look like a return to competence because Trump and the Republicans have been running the government in sort of an anti-government frame, which is not what you want when you're dealing with a health crisis.”
“And we all know when Joe becomes our president, he's going to bring back many of the Obama alums who are really, really competent and technocratic,” Yang added. “And there’s going to be a real hunger for that in the days to come among many, many Americans if the coronavirus crisis continues to grow.”
This is CNN.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
CNN’s America’s Choice 2020: Super Tuesday
March 10, 2020
9:53:02 p.m. EasternANDERSON COOPER: We've also never seen a situation like this, certainly in modern times, in terms of a potential pandemic influencing the next couple of months in a way that's kind of hard to even imagine. I mean, obviously there is the difference on health care between Sanders and Biden, but if -- You know, if hospitals are overwhelmed, if, you know, the military is called in, if people are being triaged in school gymnasiums on respirators or whatever, however bad it may get, and let's hope it doesn't --
ANDREW YANG: Nothing makes you appreciate a functional government like a global pandemic.
DAVID AXELROD: Yes, I've always said that.
YANG: Yes, no.
AXELROD: No, you're right.
[Crosstalk]
COOPER: I mean, none of us, there are very few people who have seen what happens when a society, you know, has the potential to really burst at the seams.
YANG: Joe Biden's argument has been about sort of a return to moral normalcy, but it's also going to begin to look like a return to competence—
AXELROD: Yes, yes, yes.
YANG: -- because Trump and the Republicans have been running the government in sort of an anti-government frame, which is not what you want when you're dealing with a health crisis. And we all know when Joe becomes our president, he's going to bring back many of the Obama alums who are really, really competent and technocratic. And there’s going to be a real hunger for that in the days to come among many, many Americans if the coronavirus crisis continues to grow.
(…)
