Conway criticizes Biden for not offering to help Trump on coronavirus
Senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway criticized former Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday for not calling President Trump to offer assistance or support amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Biden, the likely Democratic nominee, has been isolating at home in Delaware, where he’s been giving cable news interviews to talk about the Trump administration’s shortcomings in addressing the pandemic.
“I think it’s really disappointing to have President Obama’s number two, who apparently doesn’t talk much to him, out there criticizing instead of saying, hey, here’s what we did that we thought was effective,” Conway said on “Fox & Friends.”
“Why doesn’t Vice President Biden call the White House today and offer some support? He’s in his bunker in Wilmington, and I have to tell you we’re not talking about politics here at the White House at all. We’re talking about ventilators and vaccines, not Biden and Bernie.”
“I think the critics and the naysayers seem so much more small and so much more shrill and unhelpful and petty than they ever have,” Conway added.
In interviews, Biden has said that Trump is not responsible for the virus but that he is responsible for not taking the outbreak seriously in the early days when it spread across China and Europe.
The former vice president has also called on Trump to allow his health experts to be the public face of the White House briefings, accusing the president of spreading misinformation about the virus.
In addition, Biden has talked about his own experience in dealing with the Ebola and H1N1 outbreaks during the Obama administration.
During that time, Trump used Twitter to relentlessly attack the Obama administration’s handling of the outbreaks.
Trump said at a press conference last week that he had not consulted with previous administrations, believing that he wouldn’t learn anything new to help him deal with the current virus outbreak.
It’s the latest round of cable news sparring between aides to the likely presidential contenders in the fall.
Earlier this week, Trump told “Fox & Friends” that “if Sleepy Joe was president, he wouldn’t even know what’s going on.”
Biden fired back on MSNBC, hitting the president for feuding with the Democratic governors who have been critical of the White House response.
“We don’t need the kind of talk the president is using,” Biden said. “In fact, the president has to stop the belittling of the governors with whom he disagrees.”
Conway on Monday slammed Democratic governors who she said had joined conference calls with the administration and then turned around to use that information to score political points against Trump.
But she praised the female Democratic leaders of Washington, D.C., New Mexico, Maine and Guam, saying they’d been helpful through the crisis.
“There are no politics for them on that phone call,” Conway said. “They’re saying thank you so much for the federal government’s response. Here’s what my state, my territory, the District of Columbia needs next.”
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