“The reason that we’re in the crisis that we are today is not because of anything that China did,  it’s not because of what the WHO did, it’s because of what the President did. He didn’t take this virus seriously. We weren’t going to be able to keep every case out of United States, but we didn’t need tens of thousands of people dying.”

—Senator Murphy, in an appearance with CNN’s Anderson Cooper

The Democrats have decided, I presume in a conference call or something, that their best chance at winning the fall elections is to accuse Donald Trump of killing people. For an opposing party, indeed for any responsible citizen, to deliberately try to undermine trust in a President during a national emergency is unprecedented and irresponsible, as well as dangerous.This is what the Democrats have come to.

The statement was made in the midst of  comments in response to Cooper’s question, “You believe that the president made mistakes that ended up costing lives?” Maybe Murphy does believe that; like the rest of the “resistance” and his party, it is beneficial for him to believe that, so confirmation bias applies. Nonetheless, whatever he believes, the belief is unprovable, and as the death toll from the Wuhan virus appears to be falling not just short, but dramatically short of the models and “expert” projections, the accusation is transparently desperate. 80,000 Americans died of the good, old-fashioned flu virus in the winter of 2017. The estimates now for the Wuhan virus, more deadly, more easily transmitted with no vaccine or proven treatment, are as low as 100,000. It is obvious that the position of the Axis of Unethical Conduct (AUC),that is the Democrats, the “resistance” and the news media, is that whatever happens, it would have been better if Trump did something different than he did. The question is only how many Americans are either so hateful or so gullible that they will accept that.

“Absolutely,” Murphy replied to Anderson. “The fact that we didn’t start buying up medical supplies, masks, gowns, face shields early on, when we were begging for that funding in early February. The fact that the president didn’t put in place an effective plan to develop new tests. The fact that he didn’t work with governors and mayors to push social distancing measures earlier has cost lives.”

Earlier! Sooner!

Murphy went on, as CNN did its part to provide a platform for the planned attack, saying in part,

“We knew it was a matter of time before it arrived here and it was shocking how cavalier the Administration was. This was at a time when the President really, you know, viewed this as a hoax. He said so on TV and the reason that we’re in the crisis that we are today, is not because of anything that China did.”

Well, “you know”, he didn’t view it as a hoax, as has been shown over and over again. The President called the Democratic effort to blame him for the outbreak—in fact, exactlywhat Murphy was doing at the moment on CNN—a hoax. This is Big Lie #9, designated as such here on March 30:

Big Lie #9: ” “President Trump Claimed The Wuhan Virus Was A Hoax”

Like the similar Lie That Won’t Die that the President said that some white supremacists were “good people” (he did not—he said that some of the citizens who oppose tearing down statues are good people, and I am one of those), this one is intended as foundational. The idea is to use it to argue that President Trump was responsible for people dying from the virus, an especially nasty and unethical accusation because it is both unproveable and impossible to refute. The quote used to fabricate this lie itself rebuts it: the President called the effort to politicize the pandemic and use it to justify yet another false allegation of malfeasance a hoax, which it is. In fact, this Big Lie is part of that hoax.

Unlike the Charlottesville riot-based  lie, which is just a manifestation of Big Lie #4 above, this one stands alone. It also demonstrates how Orwellian the President’s foes have become.

Did Cooper correct him, as a service to the CNN audience to whom a news source has an ethical duty to inform, not misinform? Of course not.

Murphy’s statement is an outright lie. The entire pandemic is because of not just something China did, but because of many things it did. Murphy is blaming the Trump Administration for a virus that originated in China.  It is irrefutable that the CCP lied about the virus, covered it up, and allowed it to get out of control.

The first infection reported in the U.S. was traced back to a man who had visited family in Wuhan, according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine. He sought medical help in Washington state Jan. 19. The massive outbreak in Italy was created by Chinese workers who were imported by factories there. To say that the U.S. crisis is “not because of anything that China did” is outrageous even by political rhetoric standards.

When I see something this outrageous, I typically check to see if Ethics Alarms has previously flagged similarly unethical conduct by the same individual. Sure enough, the statements to Anderson were signature significance: Murphy is unscrupulous and capable of the worst kinds of political tactics.

In the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, for example, Murphy sent a letter to Fox CEO Rupert Murdoch, demanding that his network refuse to broadcast a NASCAR race because the NRA was a sponsor. This, I wrote at the time, told me that Murphy “has no more business sitting in the Senate than Kim Jong-un or Daffy Duck.”

Constitutional law expert, Prof. Eugene Volokh wrote at the time,

“Of course the Senator ought to argue against the NRA, and of course if pro-gun-control groups want to put on sporting events as a way of conveying their message, they should do so. But to urge a broadcaster to cancel its plans to convey an NRA-promoting event is a call for suppressing speech, not for promoting more speech. This is not, it seems to me, how Senators in our democratic republic should be behaving.”

But that’s how this Senator does behave: he seeks to achieve his goals by any means necessarily, and honesty, respect for our rights, fairness, civic responsibility, and other crucial ethics principles will not stand in the way of “whatever means necessary.”