Joe Biden calls Donald Trump a ‘whining, self-pitying child’ for coronavirus response and mocks him for saying ‘slow the testing down’ as he promises COVID victims they won’t lose healthcare
Joe Biden blasted President Trump for his handling of the coronavirus crisis and said the Trump administration’s lawsuit to kill Obamacare could leave COVID-19 victims without healthcare.
‘It’s like a child who can’t believe this has happened to him. All his whining and self-pity. This pandemic didn’t happen to him, it happened to all of us,’ Biden said during a healthcare-themed speech in Lancaster, Pennsylvania Thursday. ‘His job isn’t to whine about it, his job is to do something about it, to lead.’
The presumptive Democratic nominee debuted a new impression of the president, as he quoted him making promises about testing – and then telling supporters in Tulsa he wanted to slow coronavirus testing down.
Joe Biden attacked President Trump Thursdsay for the president’s response to the coronvirus crisis and his attack on the Affordable Care Act in remarks delivered in Lancaster, Pennsylvania
‘President Trump publicly claimed that and I quote, “anybody, anybody that wants a test, anybody, can get it.” It simply was not true – and he knew it,’ the former vice president said
He slightly changed his delivery when he got to Trump’s comments.
‘And then five days ago, at his campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, he admitted telling people and I quote “you’ve gotta slow the testing down. Slow it down, please,”‘ Biden said, using a Trump-ish tone again. ‘He actually said it, in his hour, 50 minute speech – “slow the testing down please,”‘ Biden added.
Biden reminded the small crowd that the White House had tried to say that the president was joking.
‘But then Trump himself said he wasn’t joking. He called testing a double edged sword,’ Biden said. ‘esting unequivocally saves lives, and widespread testing is the key to opening up our economy again – so that’s one edge of the sword.’
‘The other edge: that he thinks finding out that more Americans are sick will make him look bad,’ he continued. ‘And that’s what he’s worried about. He’s worried about looking bad.’
Biden added that Trump needed to ‘stop caring about how he looks’ and worry about the rest of the U.S.
The wonkier part of Thursday’s programming was all about how the Trump administration, sometime during the day, was expected to file a brief backing the Texas-based lawsuit that could bring an end to Obamacare.
Biden pointed out that Obamacare, or more properly known as the Affordable Care Act, made it so insurance companies couldn’t discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions.
Without Congressional action, a Supreme Court decision killing the ACA would also end those protections.
And in the future, that could extend to Americans who survived COVID-19.
‘Some survivors will experience lasting health impacts – like lung scarring and heart damage,’ Biden said. ‘If Donald Trump prevails in court, insurers would be allowed to strip away coverage or jack up premiums – simply because of their battle with the coronavirus.’
‘They would live their lives caught in a vise between Donald Trump’s twin legacies: his failure to protect the American people from the coronavirus, and his heartless crusade to take health care protections away from American families,’ Biden added.
He demanded, again, that the president stop supporting the lawsuit.
The Supreme Court is likely to hear the suit in the fall – possibly before the presidential election – but wouldn’t deliver a decision until spring.
‘I cannot comprehend the cruelty that is driving him to inflict this pain on the very people he is meant to serve,’ the ex-vice president said.