US President Donald Trump spoke on Saturday about his administration’s response to the Covid-19 epidemic, telling supporters at an election rally that even Prime Minister Narendra Modi was impressed and congratulated him on the scale of testing in America.
The president, who has faced criticism for his handling of the epidemic that has killed nearly 190,000 Americans, came under increased scrutiny in recent days for admitting to Bob Woodward, for his next book, that he had downplayed the threat of the virus to Even though he knew exactly how deadly it was.
Trump blames the large number of infections in the US, 6.4 million, on more tests, which he then compares to lower test numbers in India several times before, to defend his administration’s response. It also includes the size of the population of the two countries for this purpose.
“We have the best testing program in the world by far,” he told supporters at an election rally in Nevada, a battlefield state. “We have tested more people than India, than many, many large countries put together. Second from India, we are 44 million tests ahead of India. They have 1.5 billion people. “
“And Prime Minister Modi calls me (and) says what work you have done with the tests,” he said, recounting a conversation with the prime minister, the details of which could not be determined immediately. They last spoke in early June and had discussed Covid-19 then, among a host of other topics.
The United States had performed 95.6 million tests as of Saturday afternoon, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). India had made 56.2 million, according to the Indian Council Medical Research. The president apparently used an outdated number for India’s total testing when he claimed the United States was ahead at 44 million.
Trump moved on to other topics at the rally shortly. But mentioning Modi to support his response to the Covid-19 epidemic was perhaps the first time and, in particular, at an election rally.
Trump lags behind former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee, in national polls, although the gap has narrowed in recent days and will narrow even closer to Nov.3, Election Day. He is now behind Biden by 7.5 points in the RealClearPolitics poll average.
The Trump 2020 campaign recently released a video made of clips from the “Howdy Modi” event he attended with Modi in Houston last September and the “Namaste Trump” rally in Ahmedabad in February, in an attempt to attract 1.8 million Indian voters. ; they could count in battlefield states.
Biden chose an American Indian, Senator Kamala Harris, as his running mate, and launched an expansive plan for the well-being of Indian Americans and for US-Indian relations if he were elected president.
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