Region:
USA
Category:
Politics
Article type:
Approaches

Biden says US's 5m Covid cases 'breaks the heart' and hits out at Trump's 'lies and excuses'

  •  Joe Biden says US's 5m Covid-19 cases 'breaks the heart'
    Joe Biden says US's 5m Covid-19 cases 'breaks the heart'
Region:
USA
Category:
Politics
Article type:
Approaches
Author/s:
By The Guardian
Publication date:
Print article

The United States on Sunday passed the grim milestone of 5m coronavirus cases, as Donald Trump’s executive orders seeking to break a political impasse over further economic relief were denounced by a Republican as “unconstitutional slop”.

The Democrats 'presumptive presidential candidate, Joe Biden, published a statement on Medium late on Saturday night in anticipation of the US reaching 5m Covid-19 cases, a landmark that was reached earlier today by Johns Hopkins' reckoning but was passed yesterday by other counts .

"It's a number that boggles the mind and breaks the heart," he wrote. “Five million is more than the entire population of Alabama - or of more than half the states in our union, for that matter. Each time the number clicks up, it represents a life altered, a family stricken with anxiety, a community on edge. And for the families of the more than 160,000 souls who have died because of this virus, it is a pain that can never be undone. "

Biden also hit out at Donald Trump’s handling of the pandemic as the two men prepare to compete for the presidency in November’s elections.

“And yet, we continue to hear little more from President Trump than excuses and lies in an effort to cover for his repeated failures of leadership - failures that worsened the pandemic here at home, and in turn deepened our economic crisis,” he wrote.

Pelosi says ‘everything is left out’ of Trump’s executive actions. House speaker Nancy Pelosi, like her Democrat colleague Chuck Schumer, is unimpressed with Trump’s executive actions to provide economic relief for Americans during the Covid-19 pandemic.