After repeatedly downplaying the coronavirus outbreak and breaking with the CDC to declare it’s simply “going to go away” by itself, President Donald Trump gave his strongest response but to the potential pandemic Wednesday—and it nonetheless left a lot to be desired. Talking from the White Home Briefing Room about COVID-19, Trump continued to play down the specter of the virus—“I do not suppose its inevitable,” he claimed, instantly contradicting the CDC—however outlined the administration’s response, together with requesting congressional funding. “We’re prepared to adapt and we’re prepared to do no matter we now have to when the illness spreads—if it spreads,” Trump stated. And when it comes to overseeing this coronavirus technique, Trump stated Wednesday he had discovered the right man for the job: Vice President Mike Pence.

“I am gonna be placing our Vice President Mike Pence in cost, and Mike can be working with the professionals and the docs and everyone else,” Trump stated Wednesday about Pence’s new accountability. “We’re doing very well and Mike goes to be in cost and Mike will report again to me, however he is received a sure expertise for this.” The president claimed that Pence, the previous governor of Indiana, was “actually very professional on the [health care] area,” and the vice chairman famous that “as a former governor from the state the place the primary MERS case emerged in 2014, I do know full effectively the significance of presidential management, the significance of administration management, and the very important function of the partnerships of state and native governments and well being authorities.”

However the collection of the vice chairman to head up the coronavirus process power—notably over an professional within the area—instantly drew criticism, given Pence’s monitor report when it comes to science and public well being. Although the vice chairman touted his expertise with MERS, Pence’s tenure in Indiana additionally notably included a significant outbreak of HIV, which was considered to be preventable and made worse by his conservative management. The evangelical Christian chief lengthy disavowed needle exchanges that would have slowed the outbreak on ethical grounds, although he finally relented. “[Pence] made it an uphill battle,” Beth Meyerson, a well being science professor at Indiana College and co-director of the varsity’s Rural Middle for AIDS/STD Prevention, advised the New York Occasions in 2016. The now-veep additionally has a protracted and controversial historical past of holding views which are at odds with scientific information, together with questioning evolution, spreading misinformation about abortion, distrusting condoms, refusing to say local weather change is a menace, and downplaying the well being results of smoking, saying in 2000 that “smoking would not kill.” “When you’re selecting somebody who’s going to lead a response for a significant epidemic that has the potential to grow to be a pandemic…then you definitely select anyone who has a whole lot of expertise, possibly with a medical diploma, or at the very least somebody who has a protracted monitor report coping with infectious illness outbreaks, international well being, pandemic preparedness, or biosecurity,” Steffanie Strathdee, affiliate dean of worldwide well being at UCSD College of Drugs, advised BuzzFeed Information. “I don’t put these sorts of abilities on Pence’s CV.”

Pence’s designation because the administration’s de facto coronavirus chief, nonetheless, falls in keeping with the vice chairman’s more moderen efforts throughout the Trump administration, the place he is been wielding affect on the Division of Well being and Human Providers to push pet insurance policies like defunding Deliberate Parenthood and repealing the Inexpensive Care Act. Politico reported in Could 2019 that Pence—who has presidential ambitions of his personal—has helped to set up a pleasant “Indiana mafia” on the HHS that may push his right-wing agenda, together with HHS Secretary Alex Azar, who was an govt at an Indiana-based drug firm when Pence was governor. “I simply need to say I couldn’t be extra delighted that you have requested the vice chairman, my outdated buddy and colleague, to lead this complete authorities method with us,” Azar stated at Wednesday’s press convention.