Biden slams Trump over COVID, says his 'paying it down' approach 'caused people to die'

US Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden yet again slammed President Donald Trump and called his ‘playing it down’ approach in handling coronavirus pandemic as ‘disgusting’ and ‘almost criminal’. Biden’s comments come after Trump confessed to ‘playing it down’ the COVID-19 threat in interviews with journalist Bob Woodward from December 2019 to July 2020 in Woodward's latest book ‘Rage’. 

In an interview with CNN, Biden said, “This caused people to die. And what did he do the whole time? "He acknowledged this -- you breathe it, it's in the air -- and he won't put on a mask. He's talking about, 'It's ridiculous to put on a mask, what do you need social distancing for? Why have any of these rules?’”. 

He added, "It was all about making sure the stock market didn't come down, that his wealthy friends didn't lose any money, and that he could say anything, that in fact, anything that happened had nothing to do with him”. 

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Biden further went on to say that Trump ‘waved a white flag’ and walked away. He said that the US President ‘didn’t do a damn thing’ and added that ‘it’s almost criminal’. Further, the Democratic presidential nominee slammed Trump for blaming China for the pandemic and said that the deaths are ‘his fault’. 

“The virus is not his fault, but the deaths are his fault. Because he could’ve done something about it,” Biden said. 

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Trump’s interview with Woodward

During an interview with Woodward which happened months ago, the Republican President said that he 'always wanted to play it down' and acknowledged COVID-19 was more serious than the flu, despite downplaying the severity of the virus publically. Trump said that he downplayed the pandemic because he didn’t want to create panic among American people. The US President further also went on to blame China for the virus. Woodward conducted around 18 interviews with Donald Trump for the book which is due to be released on September 15. 

Meanwhile, the pandemic COVID-19 which started in December 2019 rapidly spread across the world and the US tops the list of countries worst hit by the pandemic. The total number of Coronavirus cases recorded so far is 6,397,178, out of which 191,791 people have died. Until now over 3,879,000 have recovered from COVID-19. 

(With inputs from ANI) 

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