Democratic Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine wants President Trump to stop blaming China for the coronavirus.
Trump has been adamant about referring to the COVID-19 virus as the “Chinese coronavirus” for the past few weeks. During a speech from the Senate floor on Thursday, Kaine demanded that Trump stop singling out China when discussing the virus.
“Quit the inflammatory China-bashing,” Kaine pleaded. “Did this virus originate in China? Yes. But Mr. President, that does not excuse your weeks and weeks of tweeting, lies, and misinformation about the virus while the leaders of other nations were taking steps to make sure their populations could be safe.”
He continued: “The fact that the virus originated in China does not excuse the massive missteps that have led to the United States being so far behind other nations in the world in the ability to provide testing, basic testing, to citizens, including citizens who have serious signs of illness.”
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Kaine argued that Trump’s continued uses of the phrase “China virus” or “Wuhan virus” were a “crass effort to deflect blame away from the acceptance of responsibility that a president should do.” He said the “buck” should stop with Trump rather than passing blame to the Chinese Communist Party.
The initial cases of coronavirus were first reported from Wuhan, China, in December after one doctor, who was later punished by Chinese authorities, announced the spread of a SARS-like illness stemming from a local marketplace. Chinese officials then spent months downplaying the infection rate and claiming that it could not spread through human-to-human contact, a false claim that was later shared by the World Health Organization.
Trump has argued these reasons justify calling the disease the “Chinese virus” or other similar names. After being confronted about the terminology during a press conference on Wednesday, Trump said: “It’s not racist. It comes from China. I want to be accurate.”
Kaine, a Democrat, was Hillary Clinton’s running mate during the 2016 presidential election.
