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The Democratic vice presidential candidate, Senator Kamala Harris, on Thursday criticized President Donald Trump for failing Americans from the coronavirus pandemic.
She accused him of “giving in” when he “was tough” with the Chinese government for his refusal to provide percentage data on the virus months ago.
“Donald Trump stood by and, my friends, it was a fatal decision,” Harris said in a scorching speech before Trump’s speech at the Republican National Convention Thursday night.
“All we needed was a competent president. A president willing to listen, lead, take responsibility, have a plan, do his job,” the California senator said.
But “Donald Trump has failed in the most basic and vital paintings of a president of the United States,” Harris said. “It is your duty to us. However, it has failed miserably. “
Just 5. 9 million Cases of Covid-19 were reported in the United States on Thursday, with at least 180,380 Americans killed by the virus.
The United States accounts for more than 25% of all international coronaviruses and more than 20% of virus deaths.
Harris, who was in California’s past attorney general and District Attorney of San Francisco, said, “Trump has demonstrated what we in the legal career would call recklessness for the welfare of the American people. “
“A reckless one for the danger a pandemic would pose to the lives of Americans,” he said.
Because of the devastation it would cause our economy, because of the damage it would cause to communities of color that have suffered structural racism for generations, by the chaos that would disrupt our daily lives, it is highly unlikely that many of our young people will go to school, it is highly unlikely that they will live normally and with a sense of certainty. “
Harris said: “Trump’s incompetence is not new. . . but in January of this year, it’s deadly. “
He said that month, when the threat to the United States and the rest of the world of the virus, which first erupted around Wuhan, China, became more apparent, “Trump rejected the threat. “
By contrast, Harris’ former vice president, Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, “sounded the alarm” about Covid-19.
Harris said that in what would soon be a style that persists so far, Trump “told us not to worry, that the virus will disappear,” that “a miracle is coming. “
He accused Trump of not having a plan to fight the epidemic in the United States at a time when Biden was calling for a national strategy.
“This is what you want to perceive about the nature of a pandemic: it’s relentless,” Harris said.
“You can’t help it with a tweet. You can’t create a distraction and expect it to go away. It may not go away. By its very nature, a pandemic is ruthless. If you are at first, the consequences are catastrophic. “. It’s very hard to catch up. You don’t have a chance to get it right. “
“Well, President Trump, they gave it to him from the beginning, and then they gave it to him over and over again,” Harris said. “The consequences have been catastrophic. “
Harris said Trump couldn’t and didn’t need to deal with the approaching pandemic because he “was obsessed with the inventory market to solve the problem. “
She said Trump was convinced that if he was under pressure on the virus’s genuine risk to the public he would “damage the market and harm his chances of being re-elected. “
“It’s more vital to him than saving American lives,” he said.
And “just as Donald Trump was tough on the Chinese government, he gave in,” Harris said.
She said that on January 24 Trump “praised the transparency of the Chinese government. “
“He said, quote, “China has been running to involve the coronavirus. The United States has greatly appreciated its efforts and transparency. It’ll be all right, ” said Harris.
But, he added, China’s leaders “were transparent. “
Harris said the Chinese government had prevented officials at the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from “getting the access and data they needed for the lives of Americans. “
“Instead of raising status to face the most complicated moment of his presidency, Donald Trump was paralyzed. I was scared, evil and vindictive. “
He noted that in a March 16 call with U. S. governors, Trump “told them it was not his job to provide non-public protective appliances to frontline workers. “
“He said” respirators, ventilators, all the equipment, watch to get it, “Harris said.
“That day, we had about 5,000 instances as a nation. Today we have about 6 million. Even now, eight months after the crisis began, Donald Trump will continue to take responsibility,” he said.
“You may not act yet. The tragedy of all this is that it won’t have been so bad. Look around you. It’s not like that in the rest of the world. “
Tim Murtaugh, spokesman for Trump’s presidential campaign, said in an email: “Americans have noticed that President Trump is ahead and leading the country in the fight against the coronavirus. “
“The president’s organization began meeting in January and was limited to China and then to Europe very early. At the time, Joe Biden criticized the decision, calling it “hysterical xenophobia” and “fear,” so we know Biden wouldn’t have done it. . Today we would be in a much worse position if Joe Biden had been president in January,” Murtaugh said.
The spokesman also said Trump had “launched an unprecedented national effort, involving the government and the personal sector, to produce the mandatory apparatus for Americans and allow physical care personnel to do their job. “
“We heard a lot about the fan shortage projected in the early days, however, the strategic president on the deployment of our existing materials and accelerated the production of new fans,” Murtaugh said. “As a result, no American who needed a fan denied one. The president has also developed an unprecedented testing strategy and the United States is leading the world in testing. This contrasts with Joe Biden’s approach, which does nothing but criticizes, opposes and recommends things the president has already done. “
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