CNN’s Jake Tapper in an interview broadcast Sunday pressed Vice President Pence on the Trump administration’s claim that Democrats are weaponizing the coronavirus to hurt Donald Trump’s re-election bid.
Tapper asked Pence about remarks made by the president’s son several days earlier when he claimed that “Democrats want millions of Americans to die of the coronavirus.”
“For them to try to take a pandemic and seemingly hope that it comes here and kills millions of people so that they can end Donald Trump’s streak of winning is a new level of sickness,” Trump Jr. told Fox News on Friday.
“Can we agree that neither Democrats or Republicans wants Americans to get the coronavirus and die?” Tapper asked the vice president. “You don’t think Democrats want people to contract the coronavirus and die?”
Pence declined to directly answer the question, but defended Trump Jr.’s remarks as “understandable.”
“This is no time for politics,” the vice president said. “And, frankly, I think that was Don Jr.’s point. That there has been some very strong rhetoric directed at the president by some members of Congress.”
“You don’t think that was strong rhetoric [from Donald Trump Jr.]?” Tapper pressed.
“But responding to the kind of things that have been hurled is understandable,” Pence replied, before arguing that the Trump administration has “set the politics aside.”
“I continue to believe that we have an opportunity to come together,” he added. “And with the proper expertise, and the proper resources and the prayers of millions of Americans, we’re going to get through this.”
Watch the video below from CNN.
Share your thoughts.
