House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) displayed mild incredulity Thursday at President Donald Trump’s scattershot European travel ban, which does not include the United Kingdom.
“It’s just strange because they’re saying it’s because it’s easy to travel among these countries but they’re separate from the UK,” she said. “You can just just get in the tunnel and you’ll be in the UK.”
“It’s a decision they made and it has its ramifications, we’ll see whether it’s worth the trouble,” she added.
Trump abruptly announced the ban Wednesday night, saying it will begin Friday at midnight and endure for 30 days. The ban includes 26 countries, but not the UK or Ireland, which combined have over 400 known cases. Multiple outlets have pointed out that Trump has golf resorts in both of the excluded places.
Trump framed the ban as a repercussion for the European Union’s failure.
“Taking early intense action, we have seen dramatically fewer cases of the virus in the United States than are now present in Europe,” he said. “The European Union failed to take the same precautions and restrict travel from China and other hot spots.”
The EU snapped back. European Council and European Commission Presidents Charles Michel and Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement that “the coronavirus is a global crisis, not limited to any continent, and it requires cooperation rather than unilateral action.”
