House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) sounds like she is among the many Americans who are fed up by the president’s belligerence amidst the Coronavirus pandemic. After previously harshly criticizing Donald Trump’s suggestion last week that injecting household disinfectants could be looked into as a potential Coronavirus treatment option, Pelosi hammered Trump again this weekend during an appearance on CNN for his incessant recklessness amidst the pandemic. As she noted, he is putting American lives on the line.
She commented to host Jake Tapper:
‘Disinfectant in the body — you know what they call that? They call that embalming, that’s the medical term.’
"Disinfectant in the body — you know what they call that? They call that embalming, that's the medical term." @SpeakerPelosi on President Trump's request to look into the possibility of injecting disinfectant as a treatment for the coronavirus #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/XxGWnS2GxQ
— State of the Union (@CNNSotu) April 26, 2020
Trump has shown no remorse for his suggestion to explore the internal usage of disinfectants as a potential Coronavirus treatment. Eventually, he claimed that he was just being sarcastic, as if everyone didn’t see the footage in which he repeatedly returned to the topic in apparent complete seriousness with no discernible hint of sarcasm.
Overall, Trump has repeatedly insisted that his Coronavirus response has been great. Part of the supposed greatness that he has pointed to is the restriction that he initiated on travel from China, where the Coronavirus pandemic first emerged. The problem is that tens of thousands of people came from China after those restrictions, and he failed to take nearly any other steps at all to combat the spread of the virus within the U.S. until it was essentially too late to avert large-scale spread.
400k+ flew from China before the US became the 39th country to impose travel restrictions. 40k+ came after. Since CV was already here and the fact that the US now leads in cases and is 3rd in deaths makes Trump’s claim of early decisive action meaningless. https://t.co/nQj5Bq3thg
— Rick Tyler-Still Right (@rickwtyler) April 7, 2020
Pelosi commented:
‘Let’s go into the future, okay? Actually, tens of thousands of people were still allowed in from China, so it wasn’t, as it is described, as this great moment. There were Americans coming back, or there were green card holders coming back, but there were tens of thousands. So if you’re going to shut the door, because you have an evaluation of an epidemic, then shut the door. But let’s go into the future. What the American people want is a plan to go forward. And our plan to go forward addresses their concerns.’
Watch below:
Speaker Pelosi on Trump's China travel restriction: "Tens of thousands of people were still allowed in from China. It wasn't as it is described as this great moment. … If you're going to shut the door because you have an evaluation of an epidemic, then shut the door" #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/jpKFxYVCu6
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) April 26, 2020
Pelosi went on to describe those concerns as including at least three things. To begin with, she said, Americans want support for those healthcare and other emergency services workers who have consistently worked on the front lines amidst the pandemic. Additionally, she insisted, Americans want the support that they’ve been promised, whether in the form of unemployment benefits, direct payments, or Paycheck Protection Program loans for small businesses. Congress just recently added money to that small business loan fund. Lastly, Pelosi insisted, Americans don’t want to see their money go to big businesses while smaller establishments are left to struggle — and that’s already happened amidst the pandemic, with some 151 publicly traded companies already revealing that they got loan money that had been set aside for “small businesses.” At least a couple of those companies have given the money back.
Going forward, some have been advocating for additional financial assistance for interests like states — who Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) recently suggested should be allowed to just go bankrupt, earning harsh criticism from both sides of the aisle.
