Former Vice President Joe Biden on Monday slammed President Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, claiming that the president has “raised the white flag.”
Biden responded to the president’s claim during an interview with Fox News on Sunday that “no country has ever done what we’ve done in terms of testing” amid the ongoing pandemic.
“I think he’s right, no country has ever done what he’s done — walk away,” Biden told MSNBC’s Joy Reid on Monday. “There is no leadership here.”
Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, claimed that Trump has “surrendered.” Biden also criticized the president for his repeated claim that the virus will “disappear” and his claim earlier this year that he felt like a wartime president.
“He raised the white flag. He has no idea what to do. It’s zero. It’s only one thing he has in mind — how does he win reelection? And it doesn’t matter how many people get COVID and or die from COVID because he fears that if the economy is strapped as badly as it is today that, in fact, he is going to be in trouble,” Biden said.
“That’s what this is all about. I’ve never seen a president who has been so self-serving in the conduct of the office,” he continued.
Biden in a speech last month also said Trump “waved the white flag and left the battlefield” during the pandemic.
Biden on Monday also called out the Trump administration’s attacks on ObamaCare during the pandemic. Trump during the interview with Fox News on Sunday pledged to sign plans on health care and immigration following the Supreme Court’s decision last month that blocked the Trump administration from ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program but did not block the administration from working to rescind it in the future.
“Look, this guy has no sense of empathy or concern for people. People are dying, dying. Families are bereft. People are so worried about being able to see their grandmoms and grandpops for fear that they may get the COVID,” Biden said.
“I don’t understand how he thinks it appeals to the American people. Overwhelming — the American people want us to keep ObamaCare and improve on it, not get rid of it, in the middle of a pandemic with hundreds of thousands of people ill and dying. And he wants to take away health insurance?” Biden asked.
A coalition of 23 Democratic state attorneys general announced Monday that they are suing the Trump administration over a rule released in June that scraps the health care policy’s nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ patients.