Former Vice President Joe Biden (D) is blasting President Donald Trump for his handling of the COVID-19 outbreak and what he says is a lax response to the ongoing public health crisis.
“The American people have sacrificed so much to fight this virus,” Biden said during a speech about the reopening of the country on Wednesday.
“We’ve lost lives. We’ve lost businesses. We’ve lost paychecks. Now thanks to Donald Trump’s bungling we may lose some of the progress we’ve begun to make, all because he’s lost interest,” Biden continued.
He blasted the public health response to the outbreak of the virus which he said was “woefully lacking” as he cited the increase of coronavirus cases and a death toll of almost 120,000. And he said the U.S. is far short of the required number of contact tracers.
Biden also blasted the president for touting hydroxychloroquine as a potential coronavirus treatment, not wearing a face covering in public, and scaling back the White House coronavirus meetings.
“Donald Trump wants to style himself as a wartime president against this invisible enemy … the coronavirus. Unlike any other war, any other wartime leader, he takes no responsibility, he exercises no leadership,” Biden said.
He added, “He is just flat surrendering the fight. Instead of leading the charge to defeat the virus, he just basically waved a white flag and has retreated.”
Finally, he said, “[Trump’s] so eager to get back to his campaign rallies that he’ll put people at risk as everyone’s pointed out.”
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Joe Biden says President Trump has "lost interest" in combating coronavirus: "He is just flat surrendering the fight. Instead of leading the charge to defeat the virus, he just basically waved a white flag and has retreated" https://t.co/Nj065CIsxp pic.twitter.com/DVyCrM0A23
— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 17, 2020
Biden’s comments come days before Trump is slated to hold his first physical campaign rally in months, as IJR reported.
At the same, more than 20 states are reporting an increase in coronavirus cases as restrictions on public life have been lifted, sparking fears of a resurgence of the virus.
But Vice President Mike Pence said in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that fears of a second wave of the virus are “overblown,” as IJR reported.
And Dr. Anthony Fauci has previously said that a second wave is not inevitable if “we do what we need to do to prevent it from happening.”