Democratic president candidate Joe Biden called on President Donald Trump to step down on Thursday night over his bungled handling of COVID-19, including his misleading comments on the pandemic.
During a town hall hosted by CNN, Biden asserted that “what presidents say matter.”
If elected, “I will make it clear what is needed to be done,” the Democratic candidate said.
Biden said Trump’s response to the pandemic is “all about his re-election.”
“It should be about the American people, and they’re in trouble,” he told the town hall audience.
The Democrat pointed to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield’s assertion during a Senate testimony on Wednesday that masks are “more guaranteed” to protect against the virus than a vaccine, a comment that flew in the face of Trump’s heavy emphasis on cranking out a vaccine while downplaying the importance of masks.
“You’ve got to level with the American people, shoot from the shoulder,” Biden said on Thursday. “There’s never been a time they have not been able to step up. This president should step down.”
Trump has come under fire in recent days following bombshell revelations from reporter Bob Woodward that the President had privately admitted in February how serious COVID-19 was even as he was downplaying it in public. In March, Trump told Woodward that he “always wanted to play it down.”
The President’s defense amid the scandal was that he wanted to prevent “panic” in the country by deliberately minimizing the virus.
Watch Biden below:
Biden says Trump should "step down" over handling of COVID-19. pic.twitter.com/piRUoQFemu
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) September 18, 2020
