During a speech on the Senate floor on Thursday, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) called on President Trump to “quit the inflammatory China-bashing.”
Kaine said, “One more thing, quit the inflammatory China-bashing. Did this virus originate in China? Yes. But Mr. President, that does not excuse your weeks and weeks of tweeting lies and misinformation about the virus, while the leaders of other nations were taking steps to make sure their populations could be safe. The fact that the virus originated in China does not excuse the massive missteps that have led to the United States being so far behind other nations in the world in the ability to provide testing, basic testing to citizens, including citizens who have serious signs of illness. The president’s decision to call this China virus or Wuhan virus or other epithets that he and members of his team use are a crass effort to deflect blame away from the acceptance of responsibility that a president should do. The buck stops with you, Mr. President. You cannot blame this on anyone else. You have to own responsibility and you should stop inflammatory China-bashing that is exposing Asian Americans in this country to prejudice.”
(h/t The Hill)
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