Perdue Leaves Reporter “Baffled”: “Things in Georgia Right Now Are Going As Well As They Could Be Expected”

Even as coronavirus cases skyrocket, Perdue sees outbreak response as “on track”

ATLANTA — With Georgia “headed for a crisis” from the surging coronavirus outbreak, Senator Perdue today left a reporter “baffled” during a CNBC interview in which he claimed that “I think things in Georgia are going as well as they could be expected.”

WATCH:

CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin: “Senator, I’m baffled, and I hate to say it. I’m baffled by the contention that Georgia has followed the plan…This is so far from the plan. Your governor has been asked for the National Guard to come to the state. I just can’t understand the positive spin you’re putting on this…to suggest this is going as expected is just doesn’t, doesn’t have the ring of truth.”

Sen. Perdue: “Well, Andrew, first of all, you’re talking about two separate issues here. The National Guard didn’t have anything to do with COVID-19. We’ve mobilized behind this virus, we put 200 new beds in a big facility in Atlanta in anticipation of a surge that never came…And I think things in Georgia right now are going as well as they could be expected.”

Here’s the reality: Perdue is claiming that Georgia’s mismanaged responses to the coronavirus outbreak “are going as well as they could be expected” while the state has already exceeded its peak of patients hospitalized for coronavirus as the “number of hospital beds available to treat critically ill patients is dropping across Georgia,” pushing the state’s medical system to “crisis levels.” 

And while Perdue puts a positive spin on a botched pandemic response, he’s also backing a lawsuit to rip apart the health care law in the middle of this outbreak even as 178,000 Georgians have already lost health insurance during this crisis.

“It’s clear we’re not the only ones ‘baffled’ by Senator David Perdue’s claim that while infection rates are skyrocketing in Georgia the situation is ‘going as well as…could be expected,’” said Alex Floyd, spokesman for the Democratic Party of Georgia. “Georgia is in the middle of a public health crisis. If Perdue thinks this outbreak is anything close to ‘expected,’ then he’s even more out-of-touch with Georgians than we thought.”

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