President Trump took a shot at his predecessor’s administration for not doing more to make sure the country was prepared for a nationwide health emergency such as the coronavirus pandemic.
“I inherited empty, empty — no ammunition,” Trump said during a virtual town hall on Fox News Sunday night. “Our military was bad. We rebuilt our military — $1.5 trillion. We have the best military, by far, in the world. … But you know what? Also, medically, we had empty cupboards.”
Trump continued, arguing he has done a good job responding to the coronavirus considering the obstacles he faced.
“We have an incredible testing. We have the best testing system right now in the world. We also make all the ventilators. I spent the weekend at Camp David speaking to — and a prior couple of days — heads of other countries that are desperate for ventilators. We now have so many ventilators — you know, a month ago, that’s all they were talking about was ventilators. The team of people that did this job was incredible. It was probably the biggest mobilization since World War II,” he said.
Multiple news outlets reported earlier this year that the United States was suffering a national shortage of N95 respirator masks when the coronavirus pandemic hit. The depletion of the stockpile of masks dates back to 2009 when the Obama administration was advised by health experts to replenish the supply after the H1N1 flu outbreak and never did.
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, who was former President Barack Obama’s vice president, pushed back on Trump’s criticism of the Obama administration in a tweet this week.
“We left a playbook. He ignored it,” Biden said. “We created an office to prepare for pandemics. He gutted it. We had CDC officials in China to detect and contain outbreaks. He pulled them out.”
We left a playbook. He ignored it.
We created an office to prepare for pandemics. He gutted it.
We had CDC officials in China to detect and contain outbreaks. He pulled them out.
Trump can try and shift blame all he wants, but the fact is his actions left us unprepared. https://t.co/NdsINZ307m
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 2, 2020
Biden said Trump “can try and shift blame all he wants, but the fact is his actions left us unprepared.”
“Joe Biden didn’t write that. That was written from a young man who got very good grades at a very good school,” Trump responded on Sunday. “When I closed the borders to China. I did the China ban. … Joe Biden said, ‘He’s xenophobic. He’s a racist.’ They called me racist.”
The president said his decision in January to ban travel to the U.S. from China by foreign nationals “saved hundreds of thousands of lives.”
“If we would have listened to Joe Biden — look how badly they did on swine flu, the H1N1,” he said. “Look how badly they did on so many other things. Our military was a mess. Just about everything was a mess.”
