‘NO’: Viral Tweet By Democrat Senator About Trump, Anti-Pandemic Programs Finally Gets Fact-Checked

A viral claim by a Democratic senator from last week about President Trump’s funding of anti-pandemic programs finally made its way to a fact-checker over at The Washington Post this week and ended up getting slapped with the site’s second-worst rating.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT)’s claim that Trump “shut down 37 of 47 global anti-pandemic programs,” the Post’s Glenn Kessler concludes, contains a “significant factual error.”

“Trump has put no one in charge of Coronavirus,” Murphy wrote in a Feb. 25 tweet that ended up being retweeted 60,000 times and liked by nearly 42,000 accounts. “He is pushing cuts to the budgets of all the agencies that fight pandemics. He shut down 37 of 47 global anti-pandemic programs. Trump made a choice to make us vulnerable…to this pandemic and the next one and the next one.”

Chris Murphy

✔@ChrisMurphyCT

Trump has put no one in charge of Coronavirus.

He is pushing cuts to the budgets of all the agencies that fight pandemics.

He shut down 37 of 47 global anti-pandemic programs.

Trump made a choice to make us vulnerable...to this pandemic and the next one and the next one.

41.5K

12:30 AM - Feb 26, 2020

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18.2K people are talking about this

Kessler points out that not only did the tweet go viral, “similar figures, though more carefully worded, have appeared in news articles and opinion columns.”

A little over a week after the claim circulated all over the internet and found its way into reports and op-eds, the Post published its fact-check on the viral tweet, revealing that it was clearly false. The claim, Kessler explains, relies on outdated reports from 2018 about a potential reduction in funding for the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) that never actually happened — and even failed to get the key figures from those outdated reports correct.

To make matters worse for Murphy et al, the Trump administration’s 2021 budget request “called for an increase in the annual appropriation for global public health protection,” Kessler notes.

“To ensure these successes continue their trajectory and maintain momentum, the administration has affirmed its commitment to strengthening global health security and fully supports the next phase, [Global Health Security Agenda] GHSA 2024,” the 2021 budget request states.

“Murphy jumped to conclusions, assuming the funding reductions had gone into effect and the programs in nearly 40 countries were closed. But that’s not correct,” Kessler concludes. “Advocacy groups and congressional officials jumped into action. The Trump administration backed off and now appears to fully support GHSA. The recent news reports cited above more accurately said that the administration had sought these cuts, without mentioning that they did not go into effect.”

Kessler gave Murphy’s claim Three Pinocchios, which is one step below its worst rating and is reserved for “significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions.” (Four Pinocchios are reserved for real “whoppers.”)

Murphy’s office attempted to defend his claim by citing some articles by the Post, The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal from 2018, reporting at the time that the CDC “is dramatically downsizing its epidemic prevention activities in 39 out of 49 countries because money is running out.”

“Murphy’s staff did not explain why his numbers were slightly different,” notes Kessler. “Nor did they explain why they were relying on an article from 2018 when, presumably, a senator or his staff could quickly find out whether the funding reductions occurred.” (Read the Post’s full fact-check here.)