Former Vice President Joe Biden wishes President Donald Trump would “be quiet” about coronavirus and stop spewing muddled and unreliable misinformation that’s unsettling Americans and adding to the stock market implosion.
“There’s no confidence in the president and anything he says or does,” the front-running candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination said on MSNBC. “He turns everything into what he thinks is a political benefit for himself, and he’s actually imploding in the process.”
“But there’s a lot of innocent bystanders that are being badly hurt,” Biden added. “I wish he would just be quiet. I really mean it .... Just let the experts speak and acknowledge that whatever they suggest to him is what we should be doing.”
Asked by MSNBC news host Lawrence O’Donnell if the stock market is plunging in part because investors are “realizing the president simply does not tell them, or the world, or this country the truth about the situation” amid the spread of the disease, Biden said he thinks “that’s the case.”
“It doesn’t mean the markets wouldn’t still go down, but it wouldn’t collapse, I don’t think,” he added.
Biden also said his campaign would follow experts’ recommendations concerning coronavirus precautions.
“If they conclude that there shouldn’t be big indoor rallies, then we’ll stop ... big indoor rallies,” he said. “We’re going to do whatever they say.”
Housing Secretary Ben Carson, a member of Trump’s coronavirus task force, said Sunday on ABC that there’s “no reason” a “healthy person” shouldn’t attend a Trump campaign rally. The president has said he will continue to hold the events.
Trump has also consistently downplayed the threat of the virus and on Monday compared it to little more than the disruption of a typical flu season.
Trump continued to present a positive perspective on coronavirus as the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted more than 2,000 points Monday before trading was suspended.
Check out a clip of Biden’s interview in the video up top.
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