Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton said Tuesday on ABC’s “The View” that she believed President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic had shown he has “blatant disregard for public health.”
Co-host Joy Behar said, “We heard on tape President Trump admit he wanted to publicly downplay the threat of the pandemic when he spoke to Bob Woodward even though he knew it was spread through the air and knew it was going to be deadly. He lied to the American people and said it’s going to disappear. America is about to hit the grim milestone of 200,000 lives lost due to COVID. How much do you blame him and his response?”
Clinton said, “I blame him pretty fundamentally. I think it’s unconscionable he lied to the American public about COVID, that he continues to lie to the American people, that he has such a blatant disregard for public health and the advice from public health experts that’s uniform around things like masks, social distancing, how much safer it is to be outside than inside, how important good ventilation is. Things we have known for months, things that certainly the president as we now know knew — or at least had been told in February if not in January. So, I blame him full stop.”
She continued, “I also blame him for all he’s not doing now to help prepare for when the scientists have proven a vaccine is safe and effective at scale. I blame him for not kind of marshaling a real effort to build public confidence and demand for a vaccine that is proven safe and effective. I blame him for not building an army of vaccine workers to administer that. I blame him for not having a transparent national plan for how he’ll ensure our frontline workers are vaccinated and then how the rest of us get vaccinated. Joy, I blame him for lying to the American people, for continuing to disparage science, and for not helping to prepare and protect us today, including prepare us for when we do have a vaccine. I think there’s a lot of blame for the president and his administration for where we are and where we need to be.”
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