DETROIT — Bernie Sanders urged President Trump to base his coronavirus response on science rather than politics, skewering advice offered by the White House incumbent as among the “stupidest” ever issued by a person to hold the office.
“President Trump, I think, is quoted as saying that he has a quote, natural ability, end quote, to understand coronavirus,” Sanders said during a roundtable convened in Detroit to discuss the public health crisis. “Donald Trump does not have a natural ability to understand coronavirus. And his reckless statements are confusing people in this country and all over the world.”
He added, “If you have an incredibly infectious disease, and the whole world is wrestling with how to prevent the spread of that disease, to suggest to people that when you are sick, you go to work might be the stupidest advice ever made by the president of the United States.”
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Sanders also criticized Trump’s soft-touch approach to China, saying the country’s “lack of transparency” regarding its coronavirus experience exacerbated the spread of the novel respiratory illness all around the world.
While calling for the highest level of training and safety precautions to be offered to “front-line fighters,” Sanders said the crisis underscored problems he’s highlighted over the course of his yearlong campaign for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. He listed greater access to affordable healthcare and medication, as well as paid sick leave, as examples.
Further north in a more conservative part of Michigan, Biden on Monday morning dinged Sanders for insisting on his version of “Medicare for all.” Democrats in the state weigh in on the primary between the pair on Tuesday.
“Sen. Sanders is a good man. His ‘Medicare for all’ push would be a long and expensive slog, if it can get done at all,” the two-term vice president said in Grand Rapids about the 13-year Vermont senator’s key policy proposal.
Biden touted his own public option pitch as a more realistic measure while declining to take questions on coronavirus. His team, instead, pointed reporters to previously made statements.
“Right now, we should be preparing hospitals throughout the country to increase capability as patients are available to come in,” Biden told Missouri’s KMOV4 on the weekend. “We should be given the right equipment and right training. We should be focusing heavily on testing and research.”
