Pence Explains the Failure to Meet Testing Goals in a Supremely Unhelpful Way

President Trump stands behind Vice President Pence at a podium outdoors in the White House Rose Garden.

Vice President Pence answers questions during Monday's daily briefing from the coronavirus task force.Win McNamee/Getty

The coronavirus is a rapidly developing news story, so some of the content in this article might be out of date. Check out our most recent coverage of the coronavirus crisis, and subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter.

During Monday’s White House press briefing on coronavirus, a reporter asked Vice President Pence to explain the discrepancy between the number of tests he’d promised would be available mid-March—4 million—and the number of tests that were actually done by that time, a much lower figure. The United States did not reach its goal of conducting 4 million tests until April 20. (By contrast, a plan developed by a Nobel Prize–winning economist and a former FDA chief suggests the US should be testing 3 million people per week before re-opening even parts of the economy.)

Pence responded by claiming 4 million tests were conducted by early April, but a lag in processing the tests made the numbers seem lower. 

“So when you said 4 million tests, you were talking about tests being sent out, not actually completed?” asked the reporter.

“Precisely correct,” said Pence. 

The spin continued throughout the press conference. The briefing began with the leaders of CVS, Walgreens, and Rite-Aid taking the podium to reflect on the ways in which the private sector has stepped up to fight the virus. Yet it’s been more than six weeks since Trump brought these same company heads to a press conference to promise that they would scale up drive-through testing across country to meet the massive demand. Today, only 43 sites are operating in less than two dozen states, according to CNBC.

And more promises were made: President Trump today claimed that private sector partnerships would deliver more than 8 million tests in May. CVS promised 1,000 testing sites across the US by that time. Trump said by then we’ll be doing 100,000 tests per day. 

Whatever justifies re-opening the states and putting people back to work. “We want them all to do it as quickly as possible,” said Trump.

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate