Joe Biden is taking aim at Donald Trump for his response to the coronavirus pandemic, saying the president’s failure to heed early warnings was “one of the greatest failures in presidential leadership” in the country’s history.
The presumptive Democratic nominee for president has been sharpening his attacks on Trump regarding the coronavirus, faulting Trump’s early actions in downplaying the severity of the outbreak and going against the advice of medical experts to begin preparations weeks earlier than the federal government ended up responding.
Biden took to Twitter on Saturday to call out Trump again.
“The hard truth is Donald Trump ignored the warnings of health experts and intelligence agencies, downplayed the threat COVID-19 posed, and failed to take the action needed to combat the outbreak,” Biden wrote. “It’s one of the greatest failures of presidential leadership in our history.”
Biden’s attack on Trump came as the president was facing widespread criticism for his first golfing trip since the nation put lockdown measures in place. It was Trump’s first golfing trip since March 8, when he hit up one of his company’s courses in Florida.
The golfing trip came as the death toll from the coronavirus in the United States approaches 100,000, a mark that Trump had at one time claimed the nation would be unlikely to reach. Others noted that Trump at one time had sharp criticism for President Barack Obama when he went golfing during an outbreak of Ebola, which ultimately led to a total of two deaths.
“President Obama has a major meeting on the N.Y.C. Ebola outbreak, with people flying in from all over the country, but decided to play golf!” Trump tweeted in 2014.
As The Inquisitr reported, Biden has frequently criticized Trump for failing to heed the warnings of medical experts, some of whom reportedly told the White House in January that the nation needed to start taking significant steps to prepare for an outbreak. Trump instead downplayed the virus, at one point predicting that the total of 15 confirmed cases in the United States would go down close to zero and that one day, the virus would disappear “like a miracle.”
Biden has also attempted to show contrast with Trump on the nation’s economic recovery, saying he would raise taxes on corporations and high-income Americans to fuel economic growth. He criticized Trump for focusing less on the average working Americans and more in helping large corporations that Biden said acted irresponsibly in using cash for stock buybacks rather than preparing for a potential economic downturn.
