Beth already tackled Nancy Pelosi's rote repetition of a debunked anti-Trump coronavirus talking point on national television yesterday. As I've written on multiple occasions, there are some legitimate grounds for criticism vis-a-vis the president's rhetoric and attitude toward the growing pandemic, especially early on. And despite broadly making the correct moves since mid-March (when basically the entire media-political class started to wake up to the intensity of the threat), Trump still undercuts himself with impulsive outbursts like this. In other words, opponents seeking reasons to attack him have plenty of safe, fair terrain on which to operate.
But Pelosi could not help herself, returning to the "hoax" smear that has been discredited by multiple fact-checkers, even including left-leaning PolitiFact. Pelosi's dishonest broadside elicited no pushback or correction from ABC's anchor. Over on "Fox News Sunday," Pelosi defended her late February decision to publicly urge people to flock to San Francisco's Chinatown neighborhood, which critics say placed political correctness over public health -- or at least demonstrated that she did not understand how serious the pandemic would be.