US President Donald Trump has delivered yet another verbal jab against Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, his rival in the upcoming presidential election, berating him online over criticism of the US government's response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
A short fragment of a CNN video tweeted by Trump features an interviewee who, saying that she is a nurse and has been a nurse for 27 years, described the response to the pandemic as “President Trump's greatest achievement”.
"He was the one who closed off all travel at the beginning of February", she said. "You guys remember what was happening in January? There were no other elected officials that were even thinking about Covid because they were busy doing their impeachment".
Having initially tweeted the video with a caption simply thanking the lady, Trump shared it a few hours later, this time with the focus of his attention being Biden whom POTUS labeled as "Sleepy Joe Hiden" this time.
"Sleepy Joe Hiden’ was acknowledged by his own people to have done a terrible job on a much easier situation, H1N1 Swine Flu", Trump wrote, accusing the "OBiden Administration" of failing "badly", and claiming that the Democratic presidential hopeful now "sits back in his basement and criticizes every move we make" on COVID-19, with Trump once again branding the pathogen as the "China Virus".
Sleepy Joe Hiden’ was acknowledged by his own people to have done a terrible job on a much easier situation, H1N1 Swine Flu. The OBiden Administration failed badly on this, & now he sits back in his basement and criticizes every move we make on the China Virus. DOING GREAT JOB! https://t.co/p2H40mD7Sh
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 3, 2020
Trump's message has elicited a somewhat mixed response on social media, as while several netizens opted to slam Biden as well, others reserved their criticism for Trump himself.
Joe Hiden is was a complete failure with Obama, what makes people think he would be any better now that he is in significant cognitive decline?
— RD (@real_defender) September 3, 2020
You are the swine flu. pic.twitter.com/t2cpn3mFps
— Brandon Plunkett (@Father4Change) September 3, 2020
TRUMP: DOING GREAT JOB! Only 186,000 dead Americans, 6 million infected, millions out of work, and a pretend vaccine right before election day! Who is doing a better job then me?
— JeremyNewberger (@jeremynewberger) September 3, 2020
Everyone.
The "swine flu" pandemic that Trump was apparently referring to hit the United States in 2009 during Barack Obama's presidency, when Joe Biden occupied the office of Vice President of the United States.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates, there were about 60.8 million cases, 274,304 hospitalizations and 12,469 deaths due to the virus from April 12, 2009 to April 10, 2010.