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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Fox News’ “Hannity” Monday night that the Trump administration had helped more than 25,000 Americans return to the U.S. since nations around the world began closing their borders and restricting travel due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“When airports all across the world, roads across the world were closed, when health care facilities across the world were closed, these Americans wanted to come home,” Pompeo said. “Twenty-five thousand Americans, 50 countries, some dozens and dozens of flights. We’ve got several thousand more people to get home and the State Department is hard at work.”
“If you’ve heard the stories of what the State Department’s done to get people out of places like Bhutan, an impossible place to get to,” Pompeo added. “We had a sick American, an American citizen who was suffering. We got him out, we got him back, we got him to safety. A truly good work to bring Americans hope. It’s the best of what the Trump administration has demonstrated in this enormous crisis.”
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Host Sean Hannity then pressed Pompeo on whether or not China has cooperated with the U.S. by providing useful data about the outbreak.
“They have valuable intel and information that could help the world after they hid this,” Hannity said.
“President Trump and I have been committed to making sure that we had the best data available. When you hear Drs. [Anthony] Fauci and [Deborah] Birx talk about risk, talk about fatalities, trying to think about how to model, what they need is data,” Pompeo said. “They need data from Italy. They need data from China. They need data from Iran. We need every country to step up and provide accurate, transparent information. And if we can’t have that, if we have disinformation instead, there are more lives that will be at risk, not only today, but in the weeks ahead.”
“We’ve asked every country to step up and tell us what they know so that the world can learn,” Pompeo added. “America will then turn around, we will share the information we get and we’ll keep people safe, not only here in the United States, but all across the world.”
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Pompeo also addressed Iran’s refusal to accept offers of help from the United States as the longtime adversary struggles to contain its own coronavirus outbreak.
“We have repeatedly offered the people of Iran assistance. We believe this is a humanitarian crisis inside the Islamic Republic of Iran as well,” Pompeo said. “We’ve offered to provide humanitarian assistance. They don’t want to take it from America.”
