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Lt. Governor Dan Patrick

Lt. Governor of Texas began the COVID-19 crisis not denying its existence, but simply saying that he thought that senior citizens should sacrifice themselves to keep the economy humming.

His subsequent statements and behavior have not been any better.

Lt. Governor Dan Patrick

Dossier

  • March 23rd: During an interview on Fox News, Patrick harshly criticizes states that issued shelter-in-place orders. The economy, he says, could not survive a shutdown, so sacrifices were necessary. Literally.
  • “No one reached out to me and said, ‘as a senior citizen, are you willing to take a chance on your survival in exchange for keeping the America that all America loves for your children and grandchildren?’” Patrick says. “And if that’s the exchange, I’m all in.”  
  • April 21st: After taking heat for his comments, Patrick doubles down on them in another interview with Tucker Carlson: “I don’t want to die, nobody wants to die, but man we’ve got to take some risks and get back in the game and get this country back up and running,” he says.
  • April 30th: Texas hits its highest number of COVID-19 cases and deaths — one day before Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Patrick reopen the state.
  • June 26th: As numbers of cases and deaths continue to spike, Gov. Abbott decides to close bars and suspend elective surgeries. Patrick goes on TV and offers several lies: “Our hospitalizations are up, but here’s the good news, the good news is we’re not seeing it translate to the ICU unit or into fatalities.”
  • ICU cases were, in fact, rising in Texas’s major cities. In San Antonio, it was up 420%, while hospitals in Houston said 100% of its ICU capacity was gone.
  • July 1st: Patrick goes back on Fox News, this time to fire back at Dr. Anthony Fauci’s criticism of Texas’s handling of COVID-19. Patrick says Fauci had “been wrong every time on every issue” and wholly rejected his advice.
  • “Fauci said today he’s concerned about states like Texas that ‘skipped over’ certain things. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Patrick says. “We haven’t skipped over anything. The only thing I’m skipping over is listening to him.”‍