Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said in the Democrat debate on Sunday night on CNN and Univision that the first thing he would do to deal with the coronavirus outbreak is “shut this president up right now.”
Jake Tapper asked Sanders what he would do “tonight” to “save American lives.” Sanders said that President Donald Trump was “blabbering” and claimed that he was not listening to scientists — just hours after a press briefing at the White House where the president had appeared alongside the nation’s chief scientists and public health officials.
Sanders said: “Firstly, whether or not I’m president, we have to shut this president up right now. Because he’s undermining the doctors and the scientists who are trying to help the American people. It is unacceptable for him to be blabbering unfactual information, which is confusing the general public.”
His rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, referred viewers to the plan he posted on his website, which borrows heavily from what Trump is already doing.
The two also argued over whether “Medicare for All” would have helped stop the ongoing coronavirus outbreak.
Neither of them offered any support to the president or his team, though Biden did mention the need for the nation to come together and unite.
The debate was moved to CNN’s Washington, DC, studio from its original location in Arizona because of the outbreak.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.