Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden are accusing President Donald Trump of waving the white flag after his top aide said the COVID-19 pandemic is uncontrollable.
A reporter asked Harris on Sunday about remarks made by White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on whether the federal government can control the spread of the coronavirus.
“We’re not going to control the pandemic; we are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics, and other mitigations,” Meadows said during his appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.
The reporter asked Harris what her response is to his comments.
“They are admitting defeat, and I’ve been saying that, and Joe Biden has been saying that since the beginning,” Harris said.
She added, “This is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of America, and he went on to say you can’t control it like the flu, and yet again, they’re suggesting to the American people that this is like the flu when we have known from the beginning, and they knew since January, that it’s five times more deadly than the flu.”
Watch her comments below:
Sen. Kamala Harris on Meadows' "control" remarks: "They are admitting defeat… This is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of America." pic.twitter.com/cCMno0Oz37
— The Hill (@thehill) October 25, 2020
Biden released a statement of his own.
“Meadows stunningly admitted this morning that the administration has given up on even trying to control this pandemic, that they’ve given up on their basic duty to protect the American people,” Biden said.
He continued, “This wasn’t a slip by Meadows. It was a candid acknowledgment of what President Trump’s strategy has clearly been from the beginning of this crisis: to wave the white flag of defeat and hope that by ignoring it, the virus would simply go away. It hasn’t, and it won’t.”
VP Biden statement on Meadows’ stunning admission this morning
— Stefanie Feldman (@StefFeldman) October 25, 2020
Trump, Meadows, and his team have given up on the American peoplehttps://t.co/PJWTgE7uXW pic.twitter.com/dbRTnZwme1
Trump on Friday told supporters, “We’re going to quickly end this pandemic,” as IJR previously reported.