Biden Rips Trump For Testing Everyone at White House After Coronavirus Infections But Not Doing Same Nationwide

Former Vice President Joe Biden tore into President Donald Trump for his failure to implement nationwide coronavirus testing and tracing despite immediately taking those measures when White House staffers began getting infected.

On Tuesday, Biden did a trio of local news interviews — with stations in North Carolina, Arizona, and Nevada — during which he consistently pressed for more aggressive testing before reopening the economy.

And during an interview with North Carolina’s Spectrum News, Biden singled out the White House’s response to a recent raft of infections, contrasting it with Trump’s national response.

“The president talked about testing being available everywhere, well it’s not available everywhere number one,” Biden told Capital News host Tim Boyum.

“Number two, testing and tracing is not available, and number three, all of a sudden when someone, and it’s understandable, when someone with the coronavirus infects other people in the White House, what’s happening?” Biden continued. “Everybody in the White House is getting a test, everyone in the White House is wearing masks, they’re doing what needs to be done nationwide.”

He went on to say that Trump “should be moving more quickly,” and that “It’s a false choice to choose between opening the economy and dealing with the virus. One will lead to the other. And we have to move much more rapidly than the president has moved.”

Boyum told Biden that “we’re having a big debate in North Carolina” about safely reopening, and said “Some Republicans have talked about, including the president, about Democratic governors holding back on the economy on purpose to hurt the president.”

Biden snickered at that suggestion, as Boyum asked “What is, in your eyes, a responsible reopening?”

“Look, the people who are getting hurt are Democrats, hard-working people, the people who can’t afford to stay home, the people who are getting clobbered, the people who are making an hourly wage, the people who are out there saving our lives, carrying the country on their back, and losing lives in the process of doing it,” Biden said, and accused Trump of “dereliction of his duty” for not implementing sufficient testing.

“When he asks whose responsibility it is, he says not my responsibility, not my fault. He’s president of the United States of America, the commander-in-chief,” Biden said, and went on to add that Trump “is not doing his job.”

Watch the clip above via Capital Tonight.