* From the NRCC on April 1…

Casten sides with Chinese Communist Party

Turns out China lied (shocking!) about the number of cases and deaths their people suffered from coronavirus.

But that’s not stopping Sean Casten from praising China’s response to the virus, including during yesterday’s telephone town hall.

That’s nothing new, however. Casten has been spewing Communist Party propaganda to bash the president since last week.

NRCC Comment: “It is disturbing that Sean Casten, a member of the United States Congress, continuously chooses to use Chinese Communist Party propaganda to attack the President of the United States.” -NRCC Spokeswoman Carly Atchison

* Washington Post on April 3…

For months, national Republicans hoping to wrest back control of the House this fall have targeted first-term Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.), hitting him on his vote to impeach President Trump, his criticism of the U.S. drone killing of an Iranian general and his opposition to a federal ban on fentanyl.

This week, they opened a new front — accusing Casten of “spewing Communist Party propaganda to bash the president” over Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Casten’s sin, in the National Republican Congressional Committee’s view, was a pair of conference calls during which he told constituents that China had acted “quickly” and “to their credit … shut down the entire province that this was in, and they seem to largely have isolated the cases.” […]

In an interview, Casten defended his position that China, along with other Asian nations, including South Korea and Japan, which had dealt with a SARS virus outbreak in the early 2000s, had moved with more urgency to shut down schools and take proactive measures to contain the virus.

“A reasonable critic of China might say if they had moved more quickly it might have constrained it even more,” Casten said. “But leaving that aside, our own president was saying less than a month ago this was the same as the flu.”

* From the NRCC yesterday…

Americans are dying but that’s not stopping Sean Casten from continuing to spew Chinese Communist Party propaganda.

In case you missed it…

Dem Rep Spreads Chinese Propaganda While Blaming Coronavirus Deaths on Trump
Washington Free Beacon
Yuichiro Kakutani
April 5, 2020
https://freebeacon.com/coronavirus/dem-rep-spreads-chinese-propaganda-while-blaming-coronavirus-deaths-on-trump/

* The story…

An Illinois Democrat who accused President Donald Trump of killing Americans by lying to the public about the coronavirus also spread pro-China misinformation about the deadly disease during a townhall with constituents.

As COVID-19 spreads across the nation, Rep. Sean Casten (D., Ill.) has repeatedly attempted to blame Trump and Republicans for the death toll, accusing them of spreading fatal misinformation about the pandemic. Casten himself, however, has misinformed the public about China’s role in the pandemic. When one of his constituents asked about the early Chinese response to the outbreak at a March 21 electronic town hall, the congressman refused to talk about the regime’s coverup of the virus. Instead, he incorrectly said that China had successfully isolated the outbreak in Wuhan.

“China, to their credit, once they realize they had a problem, shut down the entire province that this was in and they seem to have largely isolated the cases in China,” Casten said. “We have missed that window in the United States.”

In reality, however, China has failed to isolate the cases in the province of Wuhan, the origin of the illness. The virus has spread to nearly every part of the country, killing thousands in distant provinces such as Guangdong and Zhejiang. And while China’s self-reported data indicate the worst has passed, reports of funeral homes overflowing with urns have led critics to believe that the regime is grossly underreporting the impact of the pandemic. One media report, for instance, estimates China’s coronavirus deaths are in the tens of thousands, as opposed to the officially reported count of 3,308.

* Greg Hinz took notice and posted this yesterday…

An already heated campaign for Congress in the western suburbs has exploded in swarm of invective and bitter words, with Democratic incumbent Sean Casten and GOP challenger Jeanne Ives battling over how the COVID-19 epidemic is being handled.

Ives says Casten allies have accused her of being “a killer” and her campaign charged that he is “stoking anger, fear and division.” Meanwhile the Republican National Committee circulated copies of an article by a conservative Washington newspaper that accused Casten of “pushing Chinese propaganda.” […]

Casten said he also has been critical of the Chinese government. “I’m not saying for a second that they didn’t distort things.”

* The NRCC reacted to the Hinz story by sending out an email today with the subject line: Casten keeps siding with Chinese Communist regime…

Hi –

Once again, Sean Casten is peddling lies, this time about how he’s been critical of China’s handling of the deadly coronavirus.

But Casten has not been critical of China.

He’s been an asset for China’s Communist Party by helping spread their propaganda repeatedly.

Meanwhile Casten accuses the administration’s press briefings of killing Americans.

NRCC Comment: “It is staggering that Sean Casten continues to side with the Chinese Communist regime, which is responsible for the current global pandemic, and blames official United States press briefings for killing Americans.” - NRCC Spokeswoman Carly Atchison