Meet the Press anchor Chuck Todd drew the ire of MAGA world on Sunday morning when he asked presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden if he believes President Donald Trump has “blood” on his hands due to his slow response on the coronavirus pandemic.
After Biden offered up his recommendations for how the Trump administration should handle the growing crisis—including a more robust use of the Defense Production Act and increased urgency in providing life-saving medical supplies to health workers—the ex-veep criticized Trump for not acting fast enough.
“If I see something that’s not happening, I think it’s my obligation to step up and say ‘this is what we should be doing,’” Biden said. “Look, the coronavirus is not the president’s fault. But the slow response, the failure to get going right away, the inability to do the things that needed to be done quickly, they are things that shouldn’t—they can’t continue.”
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Todd, meanwhile, wondered aloud if Biden slamming the president for being “behind the curve” meant that he felt that Trump might be responsible for the rising death toll in the United States. (As of publication, per Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, there have been 2,197 American deaths from the virus. The nation’s top infectious disease expert, for his part, projects the death toll could hit 200,000 in the U.S.)
“Do you think there is blood on the president’s hands considering the slow response?” Todd asked. “Or is that too harsh of a criticism?”
Biden immediately replied that he felt that was a “little too harsh” before taking Trump to task for “thinking out loud” too often.
“He should start listening to the scientists before he speaks,” the ex-veep added. “He should listen to the health experts. He should listen to his economists.”
It didn’t take long for Todd to come under fire from the president’s supporters after clips of his question began making the rounds on social media Sunday morning.
Republican National Committee rapid response director Steve Guest tweeted a video of the Meet the Press segment while calling Todd’s question “COMPLETELY UNHINGED,” adding that the NBC News anchor’s attacks were “too much for even Biden.”
Other conservative media figures like Benny Johnson, a serial plagiarist who currently makes memes for a pro-Trump campus group, called the question “rage-inducing media gaslighting” while touting Trump’s partial China travel ban as proof the president acted quickly.
