If you have followed American politics over the past four years, you likely picked up on the hatred Democrats harbor for President Donald Trump. Perhaps the best example of this hatred is liberal darling Bill Maher’s comments from 2018 when he said he was hoping for a crashing economy because it was the only way to defeat President Trump in 2020. 

This perverse thinking perfectly exemplifies the mindset of the modern-day Democratic Party, and unfortunately, Americans are forced to witness this irrational hatred on a daily basis.

If President Trump says the sky is up, the Democrats will say it is down. If he says north, the Democrats will say south.

This irrational hatred is a very dangerous game to play during the COVID-19 pandemic that has paralyzed our country and shattered our economy. Now more than ever, Americans are relying on accurate information and instead of providing that, too many Democrats would rather grandstand on why President Trump is wrong — even when he is right. 

The Democrats who are now criticizing the president for not taking this pandemic seriously are the same ones who called him “un-American” in January for cutting off travel from countries engulfed by the virus. 

Compounding this misinformation effort is a liberal press corps that is all too happy to provide a platform for the hate-filled left to spew anything they want, so long as it is to the detriment of President Trump. This hurts the many honest reporters who work hard every day to call balls and strikes to the best of their ability.

During this health crisis, the liberal media has reported on propaganda being issued by the Chinese Communist Party with far less scrutiny than on President Trump’s daily briefings.

NBC News gleefully claimed that while there were over 1,000 deaths in the U.S. in a 24-hour period, China reported no new deaths. CNN’s Jim Acosta did his trademark pontificating about the United States leading the world in reported cases, complete with a math lesson proclaiming, “The U.S. has just passed China, a country four times larger in population.”

They must have been shocked when Radio Free Asia, a not-for-profit whose mission is to “provide accurate and timely news and information to Asian countries whose governments prohibit access to a free press,” ran a story a day later with this headline: Estimates Show Wuhan Death Toll Far Higher Than Official Figure. Or when Time magazine ran this headline: Report of Urns Stacked at Wuhan Funeral Homes Raises Questions About the Real Coronavirus Death Toll in China. 

The actions of these reporters are, of course, a serious violation of journalistic ethics. According to the code of ethics of the Society of Professional Journalists, the media should “verify information before releasing it” and “neither speed nor format excuses inaccuracy.”

But sadly, this is how misinformation flows. Democrats throw their tantrum, and the liberal media parrots it.

Rinse. 

Liberal media reports talking points from Beijing, and Democrats cite them as fact. 

Repeat.

It should come as no wonder that, thanks to the liberal media, the media as a whole has a lower approval rating than the president it loves to smear, and it is the least trustworthy of the country’s major institutions regarding their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

What this entire process has shown us is that as we look to reopen our economy as soon as experts deem it safe, we cannot afford the liberal media and Democrats’ partisan disinformation campaign to continue. 

Americans are scared and anxious about what the next few months will look like, and we need to have the most accurate information possible. American businesses and the millions of hardworking people they employ need to get back to work and get our economy back on track as soon as possible. Even if we cannot open the entire economy at once, we must open it where we can. 

This pandemic has shattered our economy, and the recovery is going to take strong leadership.

There are two things I know for certain. 

First, I can promise the American people that President Trump and House Republicans are up for the challenge. Before this pandemic, we oversaw a historically successful economy with the lowest unemployment rate in history, a booming stock market and substantial wage growth.

Second, the Democrats have proved themselves inept in dealing with this crisis. Rather than helping small businesses survive, they have held them hostage and used them as leverage for their socialist agenda. They did it when they blocked the initial coronavirus relief package to try and include a socialist wish list of government handouts, and they did it again this past week when they blocked additional small-business relief to once again demand the package include unrelated spending items.

This is a perverse approach to governance and will only add to folks’ buyer’s remorse as it relates to the 2018 elections when Democrats won a majority in the House for the first time since 2010.

The bottom line is we have a historic opportunity to get our country back on track in the next few months. We simply can’t afford Nancy Pelosi and congressional Democrats derailing our efforts to appease their socialist foot soldiers.

As America looks to rebuild as quickly as possible, hopefully the Democrats and their allies in the liberal press will finally put their bias aside and report the facts. We must put people before politics. There is too much at stake for these partisan games to continue.

Rep. Tom Emmer serves in House GOP leadership as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. He is currently in his third term representing Minnesota’s 6th District.