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(CNN) – Less than three days into a pandemic-dominated campaign, President Donald Trump continues to make unsubstantiated statements about the pandemic, including the politically dangerous claim that American doctors profit from deaths from COVID-19, during a visit to the critical Midwest electoral region, where former Vice President Biden delivered a contrasting message on unity and promised a stronger response to defeat the virus.
The conflicting messages from the two candidates strongly diverged as they campaigned in crucial states this weekend, each of which was trying to widen its own potential path to 270 electoral votes. With changes in the Midwest and Pennsylvania, Trump and Biden are now vying for those pivotal voters who abandoned Democrats four years ago to choose Trump’s unknown message.
Trump’s gruesome attack on doctors on Friday came on a day when the United States set a new world record for daily coronavirus cases and 17 states recorded record hospitalizations. Rather than address those challenges, the president tried to explain America’s growing case count by making the false claim in Michigan that American doctors inflate coronavirus case numbers because they ‘get more money if someone dies from covid. ».
“Our doctors are very smart people. So what they do is say, ‘I’m sorry, but everyone dies from covid,’ “Trump said at a rally in Waterford Township, Michigan, on Friday. Digging up conspiracy theories from the guts of the internet, the president claimed without evidence that doctors in other countries list underlying diseases as the cause of death, while American doctors choose the coronavirus.
“With us, when in doubt, choose covid,” Trump said. “Now they’ll say ‘Oh, that’s terrible what he said,’ but it’s true. It’s like $ 2,000 more, so you get more money. “
Campaigning with Biden in Michigan on Saturday, former President Barack Obama was highly critical of Trump’s comments about the doctors, and was incredulous that the attack was part of the president’s final argument.
“He’s jealous of the media coverage of the covid and now he accuses doctors of profiting from this pandemic, think about that,” Obama said. “You can’t understand, you don’t understand the notion that someone would risk their life to save others without trying to make money.”
“If Trump had focused on covid from the beginning, cases would not reach new all-time highs across the country,” Obama added, noting that some areas where Trump has held campaign events have seen spikes in cases ” after he leaves town “and pokes fun at Trump’s” obsession “with crowd size amid a pandemic.
“You know that when a country goes through a pandemic that is not what you are supposed to worry about,” Obama said. And that’s the difference between Joe Biden and Trump. Trump cares about feeding his ego. Joe cares about keeping you and your family safe. And he’s less interested in feeding his ego to large crowds than in making sure that it doesn’t make more and more people sick. That is what you should expect from a president.
Obama and Biden spent the day together in Michigan on Saturday, where Trump, who narrowly won the state in 2016, had been the day before. Biden leads Trump 53% to 41% in Michigan, according to a CNN poll released Saturday, which is a wider margin than most public polls there, but the results for each candidate are within the margin of error of the survey of the estimated average support for each candidate.
Even with some voters walking away from the president because they disapprove of his handling of the virus, he has continued to insist on holding large rallies – including four in Pennsylvania on Saturday alone – which only draws attention to the fact that he is dangerously flouting security guidelines. from his own experts at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, challenging Americans to hold him accountable for it on Election Day.
During his first stop in Pennsylvania on Saturday, Trump continued to downplay the impact of the coronavirus on the nation, noting that he and First Lady Melania Trump recovered, failing to acknowledge that they received the highest caliber medical care in the country and that he had access to experimental treatments that are not available to most Americans.
By minimizing the serious risk of the virus to Americans with pre-existing conditions, Trump falsely claimed that “due to our tireless efforts, the recovery rate at this time from covid, or the China virus, or the China plague, is 99 , 7% ”, using a racist term to describe the virus.
Not only did Trump ignore the thousands of Americans who have died from the virus, but there is not yet enough data to understand the long-term consequences for patients who have contracted the disease. Trump, who vowed to “end” the virus with “innovative science, medicine and therapies,” also criticized Biden’s relentless focus on COVID-19 during his visit to Pennsylvania on Saturday.
“All he does is talk about covid, covid,” Trump said of Biden in Bucks County. “He has nothing more to talk about… We agree that it is a serious matter and we have done an incredible job. And at some point they will recognize it.
Trump’s claims about profit-seeking doctors sparked an aggressive response beyond the campaign. Susan Bailey, president of the American Medical Association, said in a statement that the claim that doctors increase the number of COVID-19 patients or “lie to line their pockets is a malicious, outrageous and completely misleading accusation.”
“Covid-19 cases are at record levels today,” Bailey said, as Friday was the highest day for cases in the United States since the pandemic began. “Instead of attacking us and launching unjustifiable accusations at doctors, our leaders should follow the science and urge them to adhere to the public health steps that we know work: wear a mask, wash your hands and practice physical distancing.”
Former Baltimore emergency physician and health commissioner Dr. Leana Wen told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer on Friday night that doctors are risking their lives right now, when one person each is diagnosed with COVID-19. second.
“We have an American dying from coronavirus every two minutes, and that number is increasing,” Wen said in “The Situation Room.” “In some states, one in two people who get tested is positive. That means that we are not doing enough tests and that every person who tests positive is in danger.
Wen added that there are likely “many more dozens of other cases that we are not detecting, and that escalation will increase in the coming weeks.”
Trump criticizes the nation’s approach to covid-19
The angry tone of Trump’s campaign events and his attacks on doctors stems in part from his frustration that the country is so focused on the pandemic in the final days of the election. Poll after poll has shown that the coronavirus is the number one issue on the minds of American voters and a vast majority of the electorate disapproves of Trump’s handling of the virus.
While Trump has gotten away with holding large rallies in other states, Minnesota has been particularly vigilant with both law enforcement and contact tracing, and Trump lashed out Friday at Minnesota officials who cut back. the size of your meeting due to security concerns.
The Minnesota Department of Health reported three covid-19 outbreaks related to Trump campaign events that took place in the state in September. The state health department has linked at least 23 cases to Trump campaign rallies with the president in Bemidji and Duluth and a rally with Vice President Mike Pence in Minneapolis, according to information the department provided CNN in an email. last week.
But dismissing the safety concerns as irrelevant, Trump argued that state officials, including Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Democrat, have created two sets of standards: one for protesters protesting police brutality after George’s police murder. Floyd in Minneapolis in May and a different set for his fans.
“Keith Ellison sided with extremists who burn flags over law-abiding Americans. It treats you like second-class citizens, ”Trump said in Rochester, Minnesota, Friday night, where state officials limited the crowd to 250 people. “He believes that pro-American voters have fewer rights than anti-American protesters.”
As part of that argument, Trump once again combined the Black Lives Matter protests, which were largely peaceful across the country this year, with the much smaller number of protests turning violent and have served as a useful contrast while he tries to argue that Biden would pamper criminals while promoting what he described as “vile anti-police rhetoric.”
Speaking in Falcon Heights, a St. Paul suburb, Biden refuted that argument by focusing on the difference between peaceful protesters and violent agitators who took advantage of this year’s movement for racial justice.
“Burning and looting is not protesting, it is plain and simple violence, and it will not be tolerated,” Biden said at his event, which said it was seven miles from where Floyd was killed by a police officer. “But these protests are a cry for justice.”
The former vice president argued that Trump’s divisive language about the protests and his effort to pit Americans “against each other on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity and national origin” are part of an effort to distract from his handling of the pandemic.
During his last event of the day in Milwaukee on Friday, Biden noted that the state is now experiencing a record level of coronavirus hospitalizations.
“This week, Wisconsin, like other states, set a new record for daily cases. Hospitals are running out of beds, it was time to open a field hospital. That is what we are up against. Now we have 9 million cases, “Biden said Friday night. «Millions of people without work; to the limit and can’t see the light. They’re not sure how dark it’s going to stay … and what bothers me the most was a president who gave up.
