House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday criticized President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, saying “his denial at the beginning was deadly” and that as he “fiddles, people are dying.”
“We should be taking every precaution. What the President, his denial at the beginning was deadly,” Pelosi said in an exclusive interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper.
Pelosi added, “As the President fiddles, people are dying. We just have to take every precaution.”
After the number of reported coronavirus deaths in the US doubled to more than 2,000 within two days, officials are advising residents of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut not to travel domestically.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued the travel advisory Saturday, urging residents of the three states to “refrain from nonessential domestic travel for 14 days effective immediately.”
When asked about Trump suggesting to relax social distancing guidelines in parts of the country, Pelosi said, “His delaying of getting equipment to where it — it continues his delay in getting equipment to where it’s needed, is deadly. And now I think the best thing would be to do is to prevent more loss of life rather than open things up, because we just don’t know.”