Nancy Pelosi has called the coronavirus the 'Trump virus', criticizing President Donald Trump for failures in his response to the ...
Nancy Pelosi has called the coronavirus the 'Trump virus', criticizing President Donald Trump for failures in his response to the pandemic.
Appearing on CNN on Tuesday evening, Pelosi told Wolf Blitzer that the president had made a bad situation worse.
She said the pandemic was still raging 'because of his inaction'.
She added: 'Clearly it is the Trump virus.'
Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday referred to COVID-19 as the 'Trump virus', blaming him for its spread
'What do you mean, when you say Trump virus?' Blitzer asked.
The speaker responded that Trump could've been forcefully recommending mask-wearing and socially distancing instead of being dismissive and trying to hold rallies and making masks 'a manhood thing.'
'If he had said months ago lets's wear masks; let's socially distance, instead of having rallies and whatever they were, then more people would have followed his lead,' she said.
She said he set 'a bad example'.
'A briefing on the coronavirus should be about science, and that's something he has ignored,' she said. 'It should be about governance, and now he is finally embracing that it's OK to wear a mask.'
Blitzer responded: 'You are saying thousands of Americans have died because of what the president has done or not done. Is that what you are saying?'
'Yes, that's what I'm saying,' Pelosi said. 'I think it's clearly evident.'
She urged the White House to 'return to science' in its response to the pandemic, and 'comes closer to embracing the reality of this pandemic - this Trump virus.'
Pelosi said that Tuesday's somber briefing showed that he had finally realized it was not a hoax.
On Tuesday Donald Trump held a press conference to address the pandemic - the first in weeks
The number of new infections is soaring, showing the pandemic is far from under control
Nearly 142,000 Americans have now died from the illness caused by the coronavirus, a toll that experts warn will likely surge following recent record spikes in case numbers and an alarming rise in hospitalizations in many states.
After weeks of declining fatalities, there were more than 5,200 U.S. COVID-19 deaths in the week ended July 19, up 5 per cent from the previous seven days, a Reuters analysis found.
That was the second successive week of rising deaths.
U.S. deaths peaked in April, when the country lost on average 2,000 people a day.
Fatalities had steadily fallen, averaging 1,300 a day in May and under 800 a day in June, according to a Reuters tally.
But after many states reopened without achieving benchmarks for doing so safety, such as two weeks of declining cases, deaths are rising again in 21 states, including Arizona, Florida and Texas, based increases in the last two weeks compared with the prior two.
While some of the increase in new cases can be attributed to more testing, hospitalizations, which are not tied to testing numbers, began to surge in late June as well.
So far in July, 17 states have reported record numbers of currently hospitalized COVID-19 patients with nine states announcing new highs on Tuesday, including Alabama, Texas and California.
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