Former President Obama laid into President Trump on Saturday over his claim that doctors have tried to profit off of the coronavirus pandemic by intentionally inflating the number of COVID-19 cases.
Speaking at a drive-in rally for former Vice President Joe Biden in Flint, Mich., Obama hammered Trump for complaining about the media coverage of his administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which has now infected more than 9 million people in the U.S. and killed roughly 230,000.
“His closing argument this week is that the press and people are too focused on COVID,” Obama said to cheers and honking cars. “‘COVID, COVID, COVID,’ he’s complaining. He’s jealous of COVID’s media coverage. And now he’s accusing doctors of profiting off of this pandemic.”
“He does not understand the notion that somebody would risk their lives to save others without making a buck,” the former president added.
Obama’s remarks at the rally, the first of two in Michigan on Saturday, came a day after Trump claimed without evidence that doctors have purposefully inflated the number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. because they “get more money if somebody dies from COVID.”
Trump’s remarks drew immediate criticism from public health experts and medical professionals, including Susan Bailey, the president of the American Medical Association, who called the president’s claim “malicious, outrageous, and completely misguided.”
Obama, one of the most influential Democrats in the country, has taken a more active role in Biden’s presidential bid in recent weeks, appearing at a series of events in Florida, Pennsylvania and Michigan. He’s slated to campaign for his former vice president in Georgia on Monday.
The former president, who has remained relatively quiet for much of the past four years, issued a scathing assessment of Trump’s tenure in office on Saturday. He accused the president of treating the office as if it was a “reality show” while leaving Americans to suffer the consequences of his failures.
“He hasn’t shown any interest in doing the work or helping anybody but himself or his friends or treating the presidency as anything more than a reality show to give him the attention that he craves,” Obama said. “But unfortunately, the rest of us have to live with the consequences.”