Former Vice President Joe Biden slammed President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic as cases have begun to rise recently in the U.S., though they are mostly falling around the rest of the world.
In a speech in Delaware on Tuesday, Biden said, “Donald Trump is in retreat. Remember, back in March … when he talked about the need to act like we were at war with the virus, he called himself a ‘wartime president.’ Remember when he exhorted the nation to sacrifice together and ‘in the face of this inevitable and invisible enemy,’ what happened?”
The former vice president continued, “Now it’s almost July and it seems like our war-time president has surrendered, waved the white flag and left the battlefield. Today we’re facing a serious threat and we have to meet it. We have to meet it as one country but the president gives no direction and he pits us against one another.”
He said, “We can’t continue like this, half recovery and half getting worse. We can’t continue half wearing masks and half rejecting science.”
Biden on Trump's coronavirus response: "It seems like our wartime president surrendered, waved the white flag and left the battlefield." pic.twitter.com/6dXpdyI5CV
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 30, 2020
Biden also announced that he is releasing a plan of the steps that he thinks Trump should take, calling it “a plan to save lives in the months ahead.”
The coronavirus resurgence has particularly wrecked the southern states, especially Florida and Texas. On Sunday, 29 people were reported dead from the virus in Florida, which is the highest coronavirus death toll of any Sunday since the pandemic began, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) announced on Sunday that bars in several counties would be closing as the state deals with its numbers. California was scheduled for a re-opening phase but that, of course, has been scrapped and in Los Angeles County, health officials say that one in every 140 people have an active case of coronavirus.