‘We Still Don’t Have Enough Tests’: CNN’s Ana Cabrera Calls Out Biden for Dropping the Ball on Covid Tests

CNN Newsroom host Ana Cabrera called out President Joe Biden on Thursday, openly questioning if he had dropped the ball regarding shortages of Covid-19 tests.

The Omicron variant does appear to result in less severe symptoms than Delta, but is highly contagious, and many Americans have been unsuccessfully seeking at-home rapid tests as they plan to gather for Christmas.

Cabrera introduced the segment by saying that the “missing piece of the puzzle” was “widespread, accessible and cheap, or even free, testing,” and played a segment of the president’s recent interview with ABC News’ David Muir.

After covering several other pandemic-related topics, Cabrera brought in CNN White House correspondent Jeremy Diamond to discuss Biden’s interview with Muir.

Biden acknowledged that “some aspects” of the response to this new variant “could have been better,” Diamond said, with the president noting the purchase of 5 million at-home rapid tests, but those won’t come online until next month. So “he wishes he had taken action sooner” but at the same time insisted that “nobody saw it coming.”

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki expanded on Biden’s comments earlier Thursday, Diamond reported, saying that while the White House knew that there would be variant they didn’t know specifically which kinds of variants and how transmissible they would be.

Cabrera then spoke with Dr. Leana Wen, and brought up Biden’s comments about expanding testing, playing a clip of him from earlier in his term. Biden was insisting this “wasn’t a failure of his administration but he wishes he would have thought of ordering more tests,” said Cabrera, but he was saying this months ago, but “this testing issue is still such a problem.”

“And yet it’s December 23rd — we still don’t have enough tests,” said Cabrera.

Wen replied that she thought Biden had “put all of his eggs into the vaccine basket,” and while vaccines were obviously important, “testing is part of our reality,” and she hoped that the White House would announce a “moon shot” goal of three months or even six months for any American who wanted a test to be able to get a test. “Testing should not be the limiting factor here, and right now it is.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.