Former US vice president Joe Biden and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton lambasted the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic on Monday, saying the president lacked empathy and had failed the American people as cases of Covid-19 surge around the nation.
The pair both appeared for interviews on Joy Reid’s debut news program on MSNBC, “The ReidOut,” on Monday to discuss Donald Trump’s ongoing response to the coronavirus. Both had harsh appraisals of the federal response amid reports that cases have continued to skyrocket in a majority of the US and that the White House had pushed to block new funding for testing and tracing in the next coronavirus relief bill.
“There is no leadership here. He’s surrendered. He raised the white flag. He has no idea what to do. Zero,” Biden said during a sweeping interview. “It’s only one thing he has on his mind: How does he win reelection. And it doesn’t matter how many people get Covid and/or die from Covid.”
Seven states and Puerto Rico reported Monday that a record number of patients were hospitalised with severe illnesses due to the coronavirus. More than 3.8 million people have tested positive for the virus in the US and more than 140,000 have died.
At the same time, Trump has maintained that the coronavirus will “disappear” one day.
“I’ll be right eventually,” the president told Fox News host Chris Wallace on Sunday. “You know, I said, it’s going to disappear. I’ll say it again: It’s going to disappear. And I’ll be right.”
Such comments prompted Clinton, who lost the 2016 election to Trump, to say Trump wasn’t up to the nation’s top job while noting that anyone “who has watched over the last four years has to be concerned.”
“Clearly he has failed,” Clinton told Reid. “He’s failed at the most fundamental job of being president. He doesn’t seem up to the job. He doesn’t seem capable of having the attention, the concentration, the focus, the discipline, to stay with the problem.”
Biden added earlier in the hour that Trump appeared to be solely focused on winning the election rather than responding to the crisis, pointing to his calls for the country to reopen against medical advice and the president’s efforts to ostracise those who disagree with him. The White House has in recent days moved to undercut the advice of Dr Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, who has continued to give the public bleak assessments of the pandemic even amid the reopening push from Trump.
“This guy has no sense of empathy or concern for people. People are dying,” Biden told Reid on Monday. “He has made every serious mistake, and he has absolutely bludgeoned people that disagree with him.”