Political figures in Wales had some biting jabs for President Donald Trump after he retweeted a comment that bashed not only Democrat Joe Biden, but also its response to Covid-19.
Mere days after his exit from Walter Reed Military Medical Center, Trump embarked on a Twitter storm Wednesday, retweeting conservative Fox News host Laura Ingraham, who has argued for a swift United States reopening.
Ingraham had shared a BBC article describing rolling Covid-19 lockdowns in Wales, where coronavirus case numbers are rising, and claimed that they would become the norm in America under a Biden presidency:
Welsh political figures wasted no time in criticising Trump’s retweet.
Dr Frank Atherton, the chief medical officer for Wales, said Wednesday that he hoped “most people in Wales don’t take President Trump as their guide to how to deal with coronavirus.”
Other Welsh political figures soon chimed in.
Rolling lockdowns in America would probably lead to “a lot less people dying,” said Sion Jobbins, co-founder and chair of the Wales independence group Yes Cymru, according to The Independent.
“I’m actually surprised that Donald Trump has even heard of Wales,” Jobbins said, “and I’d be even more surprised if he has a detailed grasp of the situation here. I’m not convinced he’s got a detailed grasp of it in America, to be honest.”
Meanwhile,Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price said he looked forward to welcoming Biden as the next president of the United States, particularly since Biden’s hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania, had been home to many Welsh immigrants over the years.
“No country in the world is going to take public health lessons from President Trump,” Price said, “and certainly not Wales, as the birthplace of the NHS which gave the world the model of a national health service.”
As of Thursday, Wales has had 28,262 cases of Covid-19. The US, in contrast, has seen over seven million.