Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) masterfully countered lies told by Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert of Colorado during a House Oversight Committee hearing, and he did it by using the words of Boebert’s political lord and savior, disgraced ex-president Donald Trump.
Boebert went on an extended rant during the hearing, criticizing mask and vaccine mandates:
“You’re right. President Trump was in office when the COVID virus was released from a lab in China. And he tried to make that very clear that this came from China, and reporters regularly dismissed that.”
There’s just one ENORMOUS problem with Boebert’s “facts” regarding Trump and China during the COVID crisis: They don’t reflect what actually happened or what the failed former president said at the time, as Raskin quickly reminded his Republican colleague.
“I appreciate the gentlelady’s passion. There’s two facts that she should perhaps be alerted to. One is that Donald Trump, on more than 20 different occasions, defended the performance of the Chinese government and specifically President Xi in terms of his treatment of COVID-19 and said he was doing a ‘wonderful job’ and a ‘great job’ and they were working closely and they were constantly in touch.
“So, if there’s a problem with the Chinese government unleashing a virus ― which has not been proven anywhere, but it certainly could be true ― you would have to pin that on your favorite president, Donald Trump, not on Joe Biden.”
Raskin also noted that Trump’s own top adviser on COVID, Dr. Deborah Birx, admitted in her book that her former boss and his feckless policies on the virus led to hundreds of thousands of deaths.
“So you don’t have to believe anybody on the Democratic side of the aisle. That’s Donald Trump’s own special adviser on COVID-19.”
Game, set, and match Jamie Raskin.
