'Hold China accountable' for coronavirus pandemic and 'don't defend Trump', says memo for Republican candidates
China caused COVID-19 pandemic by covering it up, lying, and hoarding the world’s supply of medical equipment; do not defend President Donald Trump; Democrats are soft on China and cannot be trusted to take it on — these are the key messages of a new Republican strategy memo. It advises Senate candidates to blame China aggressively for the coronavirus pandemic and outlines how to achieve that.
The 57-page memo, first reported by Politico, outlines several talking points and includes guidelines and answers on several likely “attacks or questions” to candidates. For example, in answer to a question on “Isn’t this Trump’s fault?,” the memo says, “Don’t defend Trump, other than the China travel ban — attack China.”
The document further suggests that candidates say, “This is China’s fault. The virus came from China and China covered it up. Because China lied about the extent of the virus, our public health officials acted late. I wish that everyone acted earlier — that includes our elected officials, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the CDC. I’m glad that President Trump acted early to ban travel to China — that’s something my Democratic opponent did not support and that Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi criticized as xenophobic and racist.”
The memo tackles a question on whether a candidate is being racist by blaming China and causing racist attacks against Chinese Americans. “No one is blaming Chinese Americans. This is the fault of the Chinese Communist Party for covering up the virus and lying about its danger. This caused the pandemic and they should be held accountable. And no one has suffered more from the murderous Communist Chinese Party dictatorship than the people of China. We stand with them against their corrupt government that caused this pandemic,” the memo suggests as an answer.
The document shows how to answer a question on whether Trump is right to refer to the new coronavirus as the "Chinese virus." The memo also advises on how to respond if asked if it is racist to call this Chinese virus, and says that a candidate can say that there is a long history of calling viruses by the location where they originated, and this is no different. “President Trump is right to call this the Chinese virus. That’s where the virus came from. There’s a long history of calling viruses by the location that they originated from. Lyme disease, West Nile Virus, and the Spanish Flu. Everyone was referring to this as the Wuhan virus before China decided to push its propaganda. Whatever you want to call this virus, China is responsible. It’s more important to hold China accountable and prevent this from happening again than it is to be politically correct,” it recommends candidates say.
The guidance also encourages candidates to promote unverified theories that the coronavirus is “likely the result of an accidental release by a Chinese research facility — decades of haphazard experimentation with viruses and negligence in biosafety made the release of a bat COVID virus a likely source of the coronavirus.”
The talking points on how to “hit China” say that coronavirus was a “Chinese hit-and-run” followed by a cover-up that cost thousands of lives. Besides asking candidates to stress on China’s “terrible biosafety standards,” the document recommends that candidates can argue that China tried to cover their tracks by “floating a scientifically improbable cover story — one denied by the basic facts of the epidemic.”
“They moved to destroy all the evidence and lockdown any information about the virus, forcing labs to destroy samples and making naysayers and whistleblowers disappear. They pressured the medical community and captured the WHO, making them serve as a mouthpiece for deadly claims about the scope of the virus, the speed of its transmission, and tragically, about the prevalence of human-to-human spread. Finally, China hoarded the world’s supply of critical medical equipment, and then sent faulty equipment around the world — making the pandemic that they created even worse,” the memo suggests as answers.
Other key messages are that China is an adversary that has stolen millions of American jobs, and that a Republican candidate “will stand up to China, bring US’s manufacturing jobs back home, and push for sanctions on China for its role in spreading this pandemic.”
“If I’m elected, I’ll fight to move our manufacturing out of China and back home. This will create jobs in the US, and it is important for our national security. We need to get all of our pharmaceutical production out of China because we can’t trust them,” the memo recommends candidates say.
It adds, “Finally, we need to investigate how China was able to keep this pandemic hidden. China should pay a price for arresting doctors who tried to warn about the pandemic. We should impose sanctions on China and treat China like the pariah state that they are.”
Commenting on the memo, Jesse Hunt, a spokesperson for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), told Politico: “We routinely send campaigns different documents and sources of information dozens of times per week. That’s the role of the party committee, especially in these volatile times.”