"We brought that information to the president in real time, and yesterday, he made the decision in the Oval Office to suspend all travel from Europe for the next 30 days," Pence said, before elaborating on how the administration would process reentering U.S. citizens.
"Every American that is returning from Europe will be screened as they return through 13 separate airports, and will be asked to self-quarantine for 14 days," Pence said. "It's part of the president's strategy. We want to prevent the coronavirus from being brought into the country and then continue to focus on those communities where we have community spread, even as we encourage best practices and common sense by every American."
The vice president's efforts Thursday to provide additional details on the mechanics of the travel ban come after Trump provoked alarm the previous evening when he initially described the moratorium as a suspension of "all travel from Europe to the United States for the next 30 days," beginning Friday at midnight.
"There will be exemptions for Americans who have undergone appropriate screenings, and these prohibitions will not only apply to the tremendous amount of trade and cargo, but various other things as we get approval. Anything coming from Europe to the United States is what we are discussing," Trump said, adding that "these restrictions will also not apply to the United Kingdom."
But administration officials appeared to contradict the president's remarks later Wednesday.The White House tweeted that the travel ban only applies "to foreign nationals who have been in 26 European countries with open borders agreements" in the past two weeks, and revealed that "those exempt from these restrictions, such as U.S. citizens, will be directed to limited airports where screening can take place."
The Department of Homeland Security similarly announced that the ban "does not apply to legal permanent residents, (generally) immediate family members of U.S. citizens, and other individuals who are identified in the proclamation." Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf said in a statement that he intended to issue a directive "requiring U.S. passengers that have been in" the affected countries "to travel through select airports where the U.S. Government has implemented enhanced screening procedures."
Trump himself was forced to expand upon his statements amid concernsover the ban's consequences for international trade, which he tweeted "will in no way be affected by the 30-day restriction on travel from Europe. The restriction stops people not goods."
The president had also said in his speech that health insurance industry leaders agreed to "waive all co-payments" not only for coronavirus testing but also for treatment - a claim disputed by a major insurance industry lobbying group which Pence sought to clean up in his series of TV appearances Thursday.
Pence told ABC's "Good Morning America" that the administration is "making sure that Medicaid and Medicare cover the treatment for anyone who contracts the coronavirus, and health insurance companies also are working with us to include that treatment, as well, in health insurance coverage. So we're making steady progress."
Apart from the White House's various messaging discrepancies, Pence was also pressed on just how effective the travel ban would prove to be given the already rapid proliferation of the coronavirus in the U.S., where more than 1,300 positive cases have flared up across 44 states and at least 38 patients have died.
"It's a fair question," Pence told ABC, going on to note that "tens of thousands of people" travel every day from Europe to the U.S. "Seventy percent of new cases in the world were in Europe, and when we looked yesterday at what was then the 35 states where we had cases, about 30 of them could be traced to contacts with Europe," he said.
The administration's travel ban received a swift condemnation Friday from European Union leaders, who argued that the coronavirus threat is "not limited to any continent" and "requires cooperation rather than unilateral action."
"The European Union disapproves of the fact that the U.S. decision to impose a travel ban was taken unilaterally and without consultation. The European Union is taking strong action to limit the spread of the virus," said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel in a joint statement.
Global markets also reacted negatively to Trump's latest maneuvers, with a stock plunge of 7% on Wall Street triggering a trading halt for the second time this week.
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