“Take a day off and get some facts.”
Far right wing political pundit Ben Shapiro is falsely claiming no “major Democrat” took the impending coronavirus pandemic seriously until early March. Many on Twitter were only too happy to prove him wrong, and some called his claim a “lie.”
Shapiro is an anti-LGBTQ conservative religious extremist who pens books like “Bullies: How the Left’s Culture of Fear and Intimidation Silences Americans,” “The People Vs. Barack Obama: The Criminal Case Against the Obama Administration,” and “Facts Don’t Care About Your Feelings.” He is also editor-in-chief of The Daily Wire, which is “by far the top publisher among its peers in terms of engagements to its content,” according to a major internet analysis company.
On Twitter Wednesday Shapiro falsely claimed that “generalized ‘Trump didn’t take this seriously enough!’ stuff is ignoring the timeline, wherein every major Democrat didn’t take it very seriously until early March either.”
Shapiro himself in early March was a coronavirus truther, writing at The Daily Wire, “Three Reasons Coronavirus Fears Are Overblown.”
He has yet to take that article down.
But many on social media slammed Shapiro, pointing to numerous top Democrats who were sounding the alarm about the coronavirus pandemic early on.
Perhaps one of the most important pieces of evidence is a letter dated Feb. 13 and signed by 27 Democratic U.S. Senators, urging the White House to take action.
More evidence:
Here’s Sen. Elizabeth Warren on January 28, and former Vice President Joe Biden February 1, and even earlier, January 27:
Sen. Chris Murphy Feb. 5:
More: