Democrats Assail Trump Administration's Bungled Coronavirus Response At Debate
Candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination described how they would respond to the new coronavirus outbreak and called the Trump administration unprepared at Tuesday night’s debate, hours after federal health officials warned that a nationwide spread of the virus is inevitable.
The candidates united in pledging support for the Centers for Disease Control and National Institutes of Health ― whose budgets President Donald Trump has repeatedly sought to cut ― and said the president needed to show more leadership personally.
“In the White House today, we have a self-described great genius — self-described — and this great genius has told us that this coronavirus is going to end in two months,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said of Trump. “April is the magical date that this great scientist we have in the White House has determined — I wish I was kidding. That is what he said.”
International cooperation would be key to his approach if he were president, the Vermont senator added.
“This president has not invested like he should have in his budget … he hasn’t yet really addressed the nation on this topic,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.). “I would do all of that.”
Former President Barack Obama set up a White House team to deal with pandemic diseases during the Ebola crisis in 2014, former Vice President Joe Biden noted. Biden said he would replicate the Obama administration’s response and seek greater transparency from China, where the current virus, COVID-19, appeared late last year. It has since killed 2,700 people worldwide and sickened 80,000.
“I would be on the phone with China and making it clear we are going to need to be in your country, you have to be open, we have to know what’s going on, we have to be there with you and insist on it,” Biden said. “I could get that done. No one up here has ever dealt internationally with any of these world leaders ― I’m the only one that has.”
Under Trump,...
