As the nation grapples with the coronavirus pandemic and with the 2020 general election in clear view, some Democrats have downplayed China’s role in the outbreak, and according to Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) that will come back to bite Democrats.
Monday on Hugh Hewitt’s nationally syndicated radio show, Cheney predicted China would play a role in the November elections, primarily given that Democrats have focused on blaming President Donald Trump for the outbreak.
“I think because of the pandemic, I think that the role of China is clearly going to play,” she said. “I think it’s going to play a bigger role in the election. People will, I think, look really negatively at Vice President Biden and of the Democrats the extent to which they’d rather, frankly, blame President Trump, blame the administration than look at what really happened here. You know, the people to blame for what we are all living through in this devastation is the Chinese Communist Party. And I think they will need to be held accountable.”
Hewitt asked the Wyoming Republican if she thought the term “appeasers” was too strong.
“No, I don’t think so,” Cheney replied. “I think that you know, just look at what’s happened in Congress. We’ve tried for months to get the Democrats to agree to a bipartisan task force focused on the whole array of steps we need to take with respect to China. They agreed, and then you know, sort of moments before the announcement last February, they backed off. Now, Leader McCarthy has named a number of us to this task force, and we welcome the Democrats to join us. We hope and we wish they would. It would be much better for the country to have a bipartisan focus and effort on this. But we’re going to go ahead and make sure that we’ve laid out what needs to be done with respect to China. And frankly, it’s pretty hard to understand why the Democrats won’t participate in that.”
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