Political commentator Mike Huckabee said Democrats and other critics of President Trump would blame him for fighting the COVID-19 virus no matter what he does.
The former Arkansas governor made his argument with a touch of humor by describing an imagined scenario in which Trump single-handedly removes the virus out of every person who has been infected by coronavirus.
“He could personally suck the virus out of every one of the 60,000 people in the world, and suck it out of their lungs, swim to the bottom of the ocean and spit it out, and he would be accused of pollution for messing up the ocean,” Huckabee said Thursday on the Ingraham Angle on Fox News.
Trump has been criticized by Democrats and some pundits in the media for what they say was an inadequate response to the global outbreak of the COVID-19 virus.
There have been dozens of confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the United States and tens of thousands more around the world. The World Health Organization deemed it a public health crisis, and Trump this week tapped Vice President Mike Pence to lead the U.S. response effort.
“It is what it is. We’re ready for it. We’re really prepared. We have, as I said, we have the greatest people in the world. We’re very ready for it,” Trump said at the White House on Wednesday.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi panned Trump’s request for $2.5 billion in funding to fight the virus. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is the front-runner in the 2020 Democratic primary race, called the Trump administration’s handling of the outbreak “disgusting.”
A New York Times opinion article published this week talked about there being a “Trumpvirus.”
“Our president had to be going crazy over a problem that involves both declining stock prices and germs,” columnist Gail Collins wrote. “This is the guy, after all, who thinks shaking hands is ‘barbaric,’ who is followed around by aides bearing sanitizer.”
Huckabee is a frequent defender of Trump. His daughter, Sarah Sanders, was the president’s press secretary for two years.
