Coronavirus: Donald Trump attacked as US deaths pass 40,000

Nancy Pelosi accused Donald Trump of ‘weak’ leadership during the crisis, saying he sought to blame others for his own failings.

The number of deaths from coronavirus in the United States has surged past 40,000 as the political divide over Donald Trump’s response to the pandemic grows.

Democrat leader Nancy Pelosi accused the president of ‘weak’ national leadership during the crisis, saying Mr Trump has sought to blame others for his own failings as the death toll mounts.

Her comments came as state governors also pushed back against the White House’s claims that they have the resources needed to carry out large scale testing needed before they can begin to reopen their economies.

Under pressure over the issue, Mr Trump said on Monday (AEDT) he would use the Defence Production Act to compel the manufacture of more swabs for testing to boost the ability to test across the country.

“We’re preparing to use the Defence Production Act to increase swab production in one US facility by over 20 million additional swabs per month,” Mr Trump said.

Governors have said they have a shortage of equipment for testing including swabs and kits and trained personnel.

But leading Republicans have hit back, saying the president is showing strong leadership by calling out China for its role and also in pushing for the economy to reopen as quickly as possible – a call which has been backed by protesters in some states.

The death toll from the virus in the US topped 40,000 after a further 1700 deaths in 24 hours. The US death toll is now approaching twice that of the next worst affected nation of Italy which has 23,600 deaths.

In the nation’s virus hotspot of New York, the daily death toll was 507, the lowest in a week while the hospitalisation rate was the lowest in a month, fuelling hopes that the virus has peaked there.

Democratic House Speaker Ms Pelosi accused the president of ignoring science in his bid to quickly reopen the nation’s shuttered economy.

“Leaders – leaders take responsibility. So I said he’s a weak leader. He doesn’t take responsibility. He places blame – blame on others,” Ms Pelosi said. “And that might have been OK before, but we cannot continue down a path that is, again I’ll come back to science, science, science, evidence, data on how we should go forward.”

Ms Pelosi said Mr Trump had also failed the nation for not overseeing widespread testing for the virus.

“We’re way late on it, and that is a failure,” she said. “The president gets an ‘F,’ a failure, on the testing.”

But Republican Senator and Trump ally Lindsey Graham hit back, saying Ms Pelosi’s personal hatred of the president was harming the country.

“So her issue is she hates Trump to the point of hurting our own nation,” Senator Graham said.

“President Trump has done a damn good job protecting this country. He closed down travel to China when nobody in the world suggested we should. On March 13th, he declared a national emergency, put CDC guidelines into place that I think have saved a million Americans.’

“You may not agree with me, but I believe if we’d done nothing, if President Trump had not acted March 13th, there’d be a million-plus dead Americans,” he said.

Meanwhile state governors have pushed back at claims by Vice President Mike Pence that states now have a ‘sufficient amount of testing to meet the requirements of a Phase One reopening if state governors choose to do that.”

According to the White House guidelines released last week, states are required to have done broad testing for the virus as a precondition for beginning the ‘phase one’ step of reopening their economy.

Mr Trump has said that testing is the responsibility of the states, although Governors have been critical of the president for not setting up an overarching federal plan for testing.

But Virginia Governor Ralph Northam said Mr Pence’s assertion was ‘delusional’ and that governors were being asked to fight a ‘biological war’ ‘without the supplies that we need.’

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, said it was ‘absolutely false’ to accuse Governors of not pursuing testing aggressively.

“It’s not accurate to say there’s plenty of testing out there and the governors should just get it done,” Mr Hogan said. “That’s just not being straightforward.”

Mr Pence defended Mr Trump’s push to reopen the economy and said that his recent tweets to ‘LIBERATE’ various states were only meant to encourage governors to reopen their states ‘safely and responsibly.’

“The American people know that no one in America wants to reopen this country more than President Donald Trump. … And in the president’s tweets and public statements, I can assure you, he’s going to continue to encourage governors to find ways to safely and responsibly let America go back to work,” Mr Pence said.

A series of polls released over the past week show that while Americans are worried about the economic impact of the slowdown, they are more fearful of the virus and are worried that restrictions may be lifted too soon.