Six years later, Perdue, a first-term senator, is back on the ballot in Georgia, and is now running on the same ticket as a president who is fighting to control a far more deadly virus for the country.
“It is an entirely different situation,” Perdue told CNN last week when asked about his criticism of Obama in 2014.
When asked if he was concerned about Trump’s handling of the crisis, Perdue said: “No, I think, given the uncertainty we had at the beginning, we have done everything possible. Right now, he is declaring Covid-19 like the enemy. We are not fighting each other. We are all together: Democrats (and) Republicans should be fighting this virus. ”
Perdue’s comments are a reflection of how Republican senators in difficult reelection races recognize that his fate is largely tied to the president’s position before November. And with polls showing voters more concerned about the coronavirus than any other issue, Republicans need Trump to step up their performance in the pandemic, and have calculated that they must show solidarity with a president who deeply values loyalty to win the base. republican. .
Before winning his first term in 2014, Tillis criticized Obama for Ebola concerns, as he battled the late Democratic Senator Kay Hagan in a fiercely contested race.
“It is just another example of where this President and Senator Hagan simply have not worked on a comprehensive strategy,” Tillis said in October 2014, calling for a travel ban on three West African nations.
When asked last week about his criticism of Obama, but praised Trump, Tillis said of the Democratic president: “There were problems he needed to come up with. It’s a very different story.”
The Ebola epidemic claimed the lives of more than 11,000 people worldwide, almost all of them in West Africa.
Only four people were diagnosed with the virus in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and two of them died. In contrast, the coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 147,000 people in the United States, with more than 4.2 million cases in the country.
“The president has done a number of good deeds,” Tillis said when asked if he trusted Trump’s handling of the current crisis, while praising North Carolina Democratic Governor Roy Cooper. “When you are in the midst of a crisis like this, I don’t think it is productive to criticize everyone. It is a very difficult job and lives are in danger.”
Trump, meanwhile, has praised Tillis.
“Good job you’ve done,” Trump said, pointing to Tillis Monday at an event in Morrisville, North Carolina.
In 2020, few Republicans have been willing to raise concerns about deficiencies in the federal response, or Trump’s own rhetoric, which has often downplayed the severity of the virus, even recently as cases arose in the solar belt and others. parts of the country. .
When asked last week if he had confidence in the Trump administration’s handling of the virus, Republican Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado responded.
“I am not going to play at being a political expert for you,” Gardner said when asked if he agreed with Trump’s claim that the federal government had done a “great job” in dealing with the crisis. When asked again how he would characterize the administration’s response, Gardner said, “You want me to be a Democratic expert. I’m not going to.”
Only two people brought Ebola to the United States: a Liberian traveler who died in a Dallas hospital and infected two nurses who took care of him and an American doctor who traveled to his home in New York before learning that he was infected and that he did not transmit the virus to anyone else.
Republican Senate candidates in competitive races across the country harshly criticized the Obama administration’s response to the health care threat at the time.
In October 2014, the then representative. Gardner criticized the federal response during a debate against Democratic Senator Mark Udall. “Perhaps the CDC should stop spending money on things like Jazzercise, urban gardening, and massage therapy and direct that money where appropriate to protect the health of the American people,” he said.
Collins has been more critical than most of his Republican colleagues of Trump’s handling of the coronavirus, previously claiming that the President’s response has been “very uneven.”
Many Republicans recognize the difficult position they are in, given that they need to appeal to Trump’s base but also win over Biden voters.
“It is a very fine line for Republicans voting against in states and districts that favor Biden,” said Whit Ayres, one of the leading Republican pollsters. “It will be a very thin line to walk to receive 100% of Trump voters and a significant portion of Biden voters.”
“We are not going to stop this pandemic and stop the course of an economic crisis until we have a vaccine ready for the American people and these therapeutic advances,” Daines told CNN. “I am very pleased to see his focus there and work with my efforts.”
Daines did not respond to a question about whether he agrees with Trump’s reiterated claim that the evidence for Covid-19 is “overrated.”
Joni Ernst, a Republican from Iowa, criticized Obama in 2014 for “failed leadership” on Ebola, but he has not gotten as far with Trump as he is in a tight race for reelection.
“I think the president is taking a step forward, and we have vice president Mike Pence, who is leading the efforts of the coronavirus task force,” Ernst said on CNN’s “State of the Union” earlier this month when He asked him to reconcile his criticism of Obama with Trump’s handling of the pandemic. He highlighted the travel restrictions imposed by Trump and argued that Democrats had rejected them, calling it “an extremely difficult environment to operate.”
When asked last week if he was confident that the Trump administration had moved to control the coronavirus, Cornyn said it is a problem that continues to haunt countries around the world.
“I don’t know of any country in the world that has the Covid crisis under control, including the United States,” he said.
CNN’s Ian Sloan and Maggie Fox contributed to this report.
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