Governor Tony Evers (D-WI) Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” called President Donald Trump’s claim that doctors were inflating coronavirus death numbers “stupid.”
At a rally in Michigan on Friday, Trump said, “Our doctors get more money if somebody dies from COVID. You know that, right? I mean, our doctors are very smart people. So what they do is they say, ‘I’m sorry, but everybody dies of COVID.'”
Evers said, “We have hot spots all across the state. People are dying at high numbers and then Trump is up in Green Bay at the same time talking about the fact that the doctors are playing a game on this, they are identifying people as COVID-19 deaths when they are not just so they can make money. Honest to God, it just breath-taking. We are in a very difficult situation here and we should be pulling together instead of pushing apart. That is frankly why I believe Joe Biden is going to win. The Republicans at the state level, they push back on everything that I’ve tried to do and we have a president that believes that the doctors are at fault, they are messing with the numbers. And he believes that it’s over. It ain’t over. 2,000 deaths, we have hospitalizations going through the roof. We had to open up an alternative care facility. So whether it’s local Republicans or leadership at the top, they helped create this and we need their help. We absolutely need somebody that understands that this is an issue and it’s a thing, people are dying. We need to have that conversation right from the top.”
He added, “We need to do the basic things in Wisconsin, and frankly, some are not doing them because they are listening to Donald Trump. Wear a mask, stay socially distant. All of the stuff we know works and now we are in this middle of a mess here. We just have to have consistent language. People aren’t going to go spend money if they don’t have confidence in their health. That is the basic issue here. It’s not whether doctors are making more money or not. That is such a stupid thing to say.”
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