"The "fact checkers" at the Associated Press almost religiously stick to checking the claims of Donald Trump. But they drew widespread attention on Thursday for checking Joe Biden and Michael Bloomberg on the U.S. government's coronavirus readiness.
AP's Lauran Neergaard and Calvin Woodward began:
Biden made the usual Obama comparisons: "“We increased the budget of the CDC. We increased the NIH budget. ... He’s wiped all that out. ... He cut the funding for the entire effort.”
AP rebutted:
AP's Lauran Neergaard and Calvin Woodward began:
At the CBS debate, Bloomberg claimed “There’s nobody here to figure out what the hell we should be doing. And he’s defunded — he’s defunded Centers for Disease Control, CDC, so we don’t have the organization we need. This is a very serious thing.”Democratic presidential contenders are describing the federal infectious-disease bureaucracy as rudderless and ill-prepared for the coronavirus threat because of budget cuts and ham-handed leadership by President Donald Trump. That’s a distorted picture.
Biden made the usual Obama comparisons: "“We increased the budget of the CDC. We increased the NIH budget. ... He’s wiped all that out. ... He cut the funding for the entire effort.”
AP rebutted:
They’re both wrong to say the agencies have seen their money cut. Bloomberg is repeating the false allegation in a new ad that states the U.S. is unprepared for the virus because of “reckless cuts” to the CDC. Trump’s budgets have proposed cuts to public health, only to be overruled by Congress, where there’s strong bipartisan support for agencies such as the CDC and NIH. Instead, financing has increased.
Indeed, the money that government disease detectives first tapped to fight the latest outbreak was a congressional fund created for health emergencies."
AP 'Fact Checks' Biden and Bloomberg for Claiming Disease-Control 'Cuts' by Trump
The "fact checkers" at the Associated Press almost religiously stick to checking the claims of Donald Trump. But they drew widespread attention on Thursday for checking Joe Biden and Michael Bloomberg on the coronavirus.Trump has not engaged in "reckless cuts" to the Centers for Disease Control.
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