Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” called it “dangerous” that President Donald Trump had not taken the coronavirus pandemic seriously.
Partial transcript as follows:
CHUCK TODD: I want to start first with the situation with the virus here. You just heard from Dr. Birx. You’ve heard from Dr. Fauci. I think the frustration is, why is it that we can’t have even Washington unified? Why can’t even you guys in the United States’ Senate come together and everybody say, “Hey, let’s wear a mask?” I mean, it does seem absurd how polarized we’ve gotten over this, and it does seem to emanate from one individual, the president.
MANCHIN: It sure does. In my beautiful little state of West Virginia, you know we have 800 deaths have been registered, 17,000 cases, Chuck, and we are now having 1,000 cases a day. We have never ever ever seen this. Never thought we would. And we’re going into the most challenging, difficult time. So, absolutely we’re concerned. The Senate in Washington, as far as all of us, 100, most everybody is wearing a mask. The Senate Democrats, we haven’t met, as a group, since it started in March of this past — of this year. So, we’ve been very, very diligent about that. Now, our Republican colleagues are doing the same. They’re not meeting. They’re doing more Zooms like we have been doing all along. So everyone, I believe, is taking this more serious. The president has not. It’s been part of his political posturing. It’s very dangerous. It’s extremely dangerous. You know over— what close to 280,000 deaths, so far? It’s unbelievable, Chuck.
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