A top Trump campaign aide said Tuesday that presumptive Democratic presidential nominations for President Joe Biden about President Trump and the Republican handling of the coronavirus pandemic should be skeptical.
Mercedes Schlapp told “The Story” Tuesday that Biden and President Obama “depleted” the National Strategic Reserve for Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and other health-related items and prematurely halted testing of the H1N1 flu vaccine.
“I think we are seeing progress, and we know more about the pandemic today than we did back then, so I think progress is being made,” he said in response to the Trump press conference on the pandemic in the early afternoon.
“We need to make sure we remember that with Joe Biden, there was such a weak leadership when it came to swine flu, where they ended up depleting our reserves, where they stopped testing when it came to vaccines and that only shows Joe’s weak leadership. Biden in opposition to what we have seen with President Trump. “
The Obama administration sought several cuts in funding for the National Strategic Reserve (SNS) for personal protective equipment (PPE) and other critical medical supplies, although some of the reductions were relatively small, and most came after the Republicans implemented a new law to restrict federal discretionary spending, records reviewed by Fox News show.
In its 2011 fiscal budget, presented in early 2010, the Obama administration explicitly sought a reduction in the SNS: “The CDC is requesting $ 523,533,000 for the National Strategic Reserve in fiscal year 2011, a decrease of $ 72,216,000 below the Omnibus for fiscal year 2010, “reads the budget request.
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Presenter Martha MacCallum noted that despite Schlapp’s assertion, Biden continues to lead Trump in recent opinion polls on which politician would be best to handle the response to the pandemic.
Schlapp added that voters must take into account the relative visibility and accessibility of Trump and Biden. He criticized the Delaware Democrat for refusing to answer questions after an address in New Castle, Delaware, Tuesday morning.
For his part, Biden said at the time that he would seek to answer questions in the near future, adding that he had another commitment to attend.
At New Castle, Biden criticized Trump’s handling of the pandemic:
“Donald Trump fails the most important test to be the American president: the duty to care for him [and] for all of us, ”he said.
Fox News’ Gregg Re contributed to this report..
