Former White House national security adviser Susan Rice on Thursday dismissed as “ridiculous” senior Trump adviser Jared Kushner’s claim that the federal response to the coronavirus has been a “great success story.”
“It’s ridiculous. And it would be laughable if it weren’t so deadly serious,” Rice said on CNN’s “The Situation Room.” “I don’t know how anybody, with a straight face, can call this a great success and declare this a ‘Mission Accomplished’ moment when more than 60,000 Americans are dead, when more than a million are infected. And this is the beginning, not the end of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States,” she added, citing comments by Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s top infectious disease expert, predicting a second wave of the virus in the fall.
“We are far from being able to declare victory, and in any event, there’s no victory when the losses on the battlefield, in less than two months, exceed all of those throughout the entirety of the Vietnam War,” Rice added. “We need to come together… with a realistic assessment of where we are.”
“This is not the time for politics, this is not the time for victory laps. This is the time to buckle up and realize that we’re at an inflection point,” she said. “We’re either going to continue to take the steps that are necessary to keep Americans safe or we’re going to prematurely declare victory, open everything before circumstances warrant, and we’re going to be right back in the barrel in a worse situation in the months to come.”
Kushner, who is also President Trump’s son-in-law, made the comments on “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday, predicting “a lot of the country should be back to normal” by June, “and the hope is that by July the country’s really rocking again.”
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany defended the characterization Thursday, saying, “I think Jared has been taken entirely out of context” and that it had been in reference to the production of medical equipment like ventilators.