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Lo and behold, CNN discovers that Biden’s campaign promises on pandemic aren’t working out

December 29, 2021 | | Print Article

A CNN columnist noted in a piece published on the network’s website on Tuesday that President Biden’s campaign promises to smash COVID-19 have turned out to be empty thus far.

Writer Stephen Collinson especially criticized the administration’s at-home testing failure for the virus, which he says should have been a priority as winter approached.

“President Joe Biden and his team repeatedly promised more Covid-19 testing, including at-home kits that deliver rapid results, but they are now admitting a virus that is more adaptable than the politicians who fight it has outpaced them again,” he noted.

During a phone call with governors earlier this week in which Biden said there is “no federal solution” to the pandemic, he admitted that his administration has failed to do more to make home testing kits available ahead of the holidays.

Last week, Biden pledged that his administration would send out 500 million kits, but that process will not begin until next month, “which will be too late to help this week’s holiday crunch.”

“The President said he wished he had thought about ordering 500 million at-home tests ‘two months ago,” Collinson wrote. “Such comments by the President, while candid, are unlikely to improve public confidence in a White House that vowed to shut Covid-19 down but sometimes seems to have underestimated the staying power of the virus and the scale of the challenge.”

Collinson continued:

The frustrating search for tests endured by many Americans may also have a political consequence for Biden as he searches for a bounce back after a grim few months that saw his approval ratings tumble. He is, after all, on the record promising to fix a dearth of testing that has been laid bare by the recent viral surge. 

Running on competence, he put the issue at the center of his 2020 campaign, which was partly rooted in highlighting ex-President Donald Trump’s failures during the first year of the pandemic. And in an address to the nation last March, for instance, the President said: “We continue to work on making at-home testing available.”

For the record, Trump’s ‘failures’ included an early travel ban on China, where the virus originated and which Biden labeled “hysterical xenophobia,” and a “Project Warp Speed,” a program he commissioned for the rapid development of a vaccine, which led to three being developed in months, not years.

Biden, “more than nine months later,” by comparison, “is now admitting that not enough has been done,” the columnist noted, adding that comments like those from the president “make it hard to accept” claims from the administration that officials were “taken off guard by the Omicron variant.”

“Many experts have said for months that rapid testing needs to be more available to the public. It’s hardly a secret that new variants of the virus were inevitable,” the CNN columnist continued.

“And a recent episode in which White House press secretary Jen Psaki mocked the idea of sending a test to all Americans — a goal Biden has now embraced — further muddled the administration’s stance on this new phase of the pandemic.”

Several people commented on social media that the network appeared to be finally coming around to the realities of Biden’s presidency.

Jon Dougherty
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