This Wednesday, President Trump named Vice President Mike Pence to lead the government response to the coronavirus outbreak.
“I’m going to be putting our vice president, Mike Pence, in charge, and Mike will be working with the professionals,” Trump said in the White House briefing room. “Mike is going to be in charge, and Mike will report back to me,” he added. “But he’s got a certain talent for this.”
The Hill reports that Trump’s decision “represented an effort to bolster public confidence about his administration’s response to the virus, which has spread quickly across the globe.”
“Pence’s measured accounting of how the government would seek to ensure the disease does not spread to the U.S. was in stark contrast to the president’s own approach to the virus,” writes The Hill’s Bret Samuels. “Moments before announcing Pence would lead the government response, Trump expressed amazement at statistics that showed influenza kills thousands of people each year.”
“Pence assured the president he would keep him apprised of the latest developments,” the report continued. “He also cited the importance of keeping local leaders informed, recounting that he was serving as governor of Indiana when the first case of Middle East respiratory syndrome was reported in 2014.”
Read the full report over at The Hill.
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