President Donald Trump is responding to the criticism he has faced for his response to the coronavirus outbreak around the world.
On Friday, Trump appeared in North Charleston, South Carolina, for a rally, where he took the time to address the media and Democratic lawmakers’ criticism of his decisions.
“The Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus,” Trump claimed.
“One of my people came up to me and said, ‘Mr. President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia. That didn’t work out too well,'” Trump said. “They couldn’t do it. They tried the impeachment hoax.”
“This is their new hoax,” he said of the coronavirus.
Check out the footage from Trump’s rally:
Here’s Trump at his rally tonight in South Carolina dismissing worries about the coronavirus as the “new hoax” pic.twitter.com/Q58d7dI1cb
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) February 29, 2020
Members of the Trump administration have also expressed similar sentiments.
On Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney also referred to the coronavirus as a “the hoax of the day.” Mulvaney also accused Democrats of using the virus outbreak as a way to “bring down” Trump.
“The reason you’re seeing so much attention to it today is that they think this is going to be the thing that brings down the president,” he said. That’s what this is all about it.”
Mulvaney also refuted the claims about the Trump administration “scrambling” to come up with a plan to combat the potential pandemic.
The latest news follows a string of reports about Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) ongoing political sparring match surrounding the coronavirus.
Pelosi and other Democratic lawmakers have criticized most of Trump’s coronavirus response efforts. In fact, there has been a lot of tension as House Republicans reportedly walked out of a closed-door briefing about the coronavirus outbreak on Friday when a senior Democrat slammed the Trump administration.
As previously reported on IJR, Pelosi has said she doesn’t think “the president knows what he’s talking about,” while he has insisted she is “incompetent.”