Democratic presidential hopeful former Vice President Joe Biden attacked President Donald Trump’s administration for its response to the coronavirus outbreak on Sunday’s broadcast of CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Biden said, “I know what I would have done differently and what we did in the Ebola crisis. I heard the vice president say they set up an office in the White House. We had an office in the White House. We, after us dealing with the pandemic that could have been incredibly dangerous and affected the world, Ebola, and we set up an entire mechanism of how the deal with future outbreaks of pandemic diseases. They eliminated that office when they came into play. They cut the funding for CDC.”
He continued, “And so, what, look, here, we knew that this was coming. We knew that this was coming back as far as January. They did not even begin to prepare the testing kits. I mean, this is something that is kind of elementary. He talked about the testing kits, and now we are going to get them. Look, I don’t want to talk down the possibility of us being able to do this well, but, you know, the idea that Donald Trump said just several days ago that this is a Democratic Hoax. What in God’s name is he talking about? What in God’s name is he talking about? Has he no shame? We are in a situation where I respect Vice President Pence and his being put in charge, but we should be hearing from the scientists.”
“He mentioned Fauci and Fauci has been there since Bush,” Biden added. “All three presidents, and we have listened to him. He was a spokesperson and out in front. Let the scientists speak. Let them tell us what is going on and let them prepare us, and let them prepare the country. Let them be the ones who are going to be expanding the protective gear for the hospitals that are intake hospitals. As you pointed out, Jake, the fact is that the other nations have had thousands of tests so far. What are we doing? Why are we just getting started? I would not have dismantled the organization that we put in place in the first place. I would have made sure that we had American scientists in China insisting knowing what is happening in China and doing the same thing in Europe where it is now spread. The idea that this is not a pandemic and that it is not worldwide and that it is not going to be worse doesn’t mean that we are going to die, but it is going to get worse is absolutely bizarre.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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