During a speech on the Senate floor on Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) stated that President Trump referring to coronavirus as the “China virus” shows that the president is “trying to deflect blame” and argued that the president “is a risk to public health” when he speaks and “more than anything or anybody else, the responsibility for America’s failure to deal competently with COVID-19 falls squarely on President Trump’s shoulders.”
Schumer said, “It’s remarkable that President Trump has lowered the bar so much that his performance yesterday was seen as a change in tone. It’s a very sad state of affairs in our country when one day of the president reading statistics is hailed as leadership, when that’s what he should have been doing all along. The mere acknowledgment by the president that COVID-19 is raging through our country is some kind of breakthrough? Is that what people believe? Is that what Trump wants the people to believe? That’s crazy. The truth is, every time the president takes the podium, he is a risk to public health.”
He continued, “Six months into the coronavirus, and the president has only just come around to the idea that wearing masks would be a good idea. He deserves criticism for that belated admission, not praise. Six months into the crisis, and the president said yesterday his administration is ‘in the process of developing a strategy that’s going to be very, very powerful.’ Six months in. Countries in Europe and East Asia developed national testing regimes ages ago, and that’s why they’re way ahead of us in fighting this crisis.”
Schumer concluded, “President Trump started his press conference by labeling COVID-19 the ‘China virus’ – which shows the president’s still trying to deflect blame and play political games with this deadly serious virus, games that are divisive. The truth is, more than anything or anybody else, the responsibility for America’s failure to deal competently with COVID-19 falls squarely on President Trump’s shoulders.”
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