Sen. Amy Klobuchar called for politicians and people alike to “depoliticize” the coronavirus outbreak.
The Democratic senator from Minnesota made the proclamation during her Thursday evening town hall on Fox News. While discussing the outbreak, which has killed 3,000 people worldwide, moderator Bret Baier brought up the “aggressive characterizations” of President Trump’s response to the illness from Democrats, specifically naming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
Klobuchar began by explaining members of Congress have a lot of “frustration” over the president’s request for funding in order to help contain the virus. The president asked Congress for $2.5 billion, but Democrats have panned the request as being late and inadequate.
“I think, in any kind of national crisis, America comes together,” the senator said. “We must, and it is not just with the people in Washington. It’s with local health professionals who are going to be on the front line.”
“I think people are going to have to step back and depoliticize this, as I said, and do what they should do,” she said. “This isn’t normal. This is a really serious thing. People have died, and we want to contain it as much as we can. Use quarantine when we must, but make sure that we are treating people and that they get the treatment they need, and what we know about this disease is, some people get very sick, and some people don’t get that sick.”
There have been 60 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the United States so far.
