Dems release Coronavirus Task Force reports, accuse Trump admin. of downplaying risk

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White House trade adviser Peter Navarro reveals three issues crucial to the 2020 presidential campaign: Jobs and the economy, law-and-order and border security and the coronavirus pandemic. He believes Trump will come out on top no matter the subject matter.

The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis released eight weeks of White House Coronavirus Task Force reports that they say contradict the Trump administration's optimistic public statements.

The reports, which range from June 23 through Aug. 9, provide summaries and recommendations for each state, as well as statistics and color codes showing whether states were in the green, yellow or red zone in areas including case numbers, deaths, testing and positivity rates.

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"The Task Force reports released today show the White House has known since June that coronavirus cases were surging across the country and many states were becoming dangerous 'red zones' where the virus was spreading fast," subcommittee Chairman Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., said in a statement. "Rather than being straight with the American people and creating a national plan to fix the problem, the president and his enablers kept these alarming reports private while publicly downplaying the threat to millions of Americans."

Clyburn went on to claim that as a result of Trump's "failures," many task force recommendations have not been implemented and 58,000 people have died since their warnings remained private.

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The committee, however, did acknowledge that the states themselves received the task force's recommendations and that several of them, particularly ones such as Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and Oklahoma that worsened over the summer, did not follow the guidelines.

President Trump listens as Vice President Mike Pence speaks during a coronavirus task force briefing at the White House, April 19, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

The committee also chided the administration for failing to support task force recommendations, specifically pointing to President Trump's refusal to call for a national mask mandate. A Congressional Research Service report from Aug. 6 – three days before the last task force report that was released – expressed doubt over whether the executive branch has the power to enact such a mandate.

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The report said that there is a basis for the secretary of Health and Human Services to enact certain nationwide mandates, but that they might have to be limited in scope and subject to constitutional restrictions as well as administrative law requirements pertaining to executive branch rulemaking.

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is set to testify before the coronavirus subcommittee on Tuesday afternoon at a hearing titled, "The Administration's Response to the Economic Crisis."