Speaker Nancy Pelosi has characterized President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic as “deadly.”
Pelosi joined host Jake Tapper Sunday morning on CNN’s “State of the Union” program where she made the bold comments.
“As the president fiddles, people are dying,” Pelosi said. “We just have to take every precaution.”
Tapper followed up by asking Pelosi, “Are you saying his downplaying ultimately cost American lives?”
“Yes, I am,” Pelosi responded.
Pelosi says Congress will have to investigate whether Trump heeded advice from scientific experts as part of an after-action report on the pandemic response.
“The president, his denial at the beginning, was deadly. His delaying of getting equipment to where it continued — his continued delay in getting equipment to where it’s needed is deadly.,” Pelosi said during the interview. “Now the best thing to do would be to prevent more loss of life rather than open things up, because we just don’t know. We have to have testing, testing, testing.”
You can watch a portion of Pelosi’s comments below:
(The Associated Press contributed to this report)