Fact Check: Democrat Governors Praised Trump’s Coronavirus Response

CLAIM: Democrat governors praised the Trump administration’s response to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, President Trump said Tuesday during the first presidential debate in Cleveland, Ohio.

VERDICT: True.

In March, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) expressed his gratitude to Trump and Vice President Mike Pence for supporting the state’s efforts to build up drive-through testing centers, according to Breitbart News.

“I want to thank the vice president, and especially the president, who facilitated this and moved quickly,” he said.

In April, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) echoed Cuomo’s comments during Pence’s visit to the Mayo Clinic.

“I can tell you that the vice president spends countless hours on the phone with governors every week; he’s there to pick up the phone when we call. I want to thank you and the president,” Walz said.

At the White House in April, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) also praised the administration’s response.

“We are grateful to both President Donald Trump and Vice President Pence for keeping Louisiana at the forefront of this fight against COVID-19 and appreciate them understanding the necessity of these ventilators for the survival of our people,” Bel Edwards said, “especially in light of today’s sobering numbers.”

During the debate Tuesday, Trump said Biden did not think the country should have been closed to protect citizens as much as possible.

“You wouldn’t have closed it for another two months. By my doing it early, in fact, Dr. Fauci said, ‘President Trump saved thousands of lives.’ Many of your Democrat governors said, ‘President Trump did a phenomenal job,’” he told the former vice president.

The president continued:

We worked with the governors. Oh really? Go take a look. The governors said I did a phenomenal job. Most of them said that. In fact, people that would not be necessarily on my side said that, “President Trump did a phenomenal job.” We did. We got the gowns, we got the masks, we made the ventilators. You wouldn’t have made ventilators, and now we’re weeks away from a vaccine. We’re doing therapeutics already. Fewer people are dying when they get sick. Far fewer people are dying. We’ve done a great job.

However, Trump said the media kept giving him bad press regarding his response to the pandemic, calling it “fake news.”

“They give you good press, they give me bad press because that’s the way it is, unfortunately,” he said, adding that he did not care and that he had become “used to it.”

“But I’ll tell you, Joe, you could never have done the job that we did. You don’t have it in your blood You could have. never done that job,” the president concluded.