Trump says India, China don’t give real numbers on COVID-19 in chaotic debate
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday (September 29) questioned the credibility of India’s data on COVID-19 deaths, lumping in the US partner with China and Russia during a heated pre-election debate.
Trump’s response came as his Democratic rival Joe Biden blamed the President for the high COVID-19 toll in the US, which has recorded over 200,000 deaths and more than seven million infections.
Joe Biden branded Donald Trump a liar and told him to “shut up” as the two clashed in a bad-tempered start to their first televised debate. “The fact is that everything he is saying so far is simply a lie. I’m not here to call out his lies. Everybody knows he’s a liar,” Biden said.
“How many of you got up this morning and had an empty chair at the kitchen table because someone died of Covid?” Biden asked.
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The US President mentioned India twice while arguing with the Democrat nominee. However, none of the mentions was in praise of India.
Trump said in the presidential debate on Wednesday (IST, September 30), “We don’t know how many people died of Covid-19 in China, Russia, India… because they do not give straight answers, they don’t give real numbers.”
Trump said that “millions” could have died without his actions and again blamed the pandemic on China, which initially suppressed news of the disease when it emerged late last year.
As Joe Biden talked about how many US families have lost their loved ones due to coronavirus, Donald Trump said it is due to China.
“Many of your Democrat governors said President Trump did a phenomenal job,” Trump claimed. He also said that “we’re weeks away from a vaccine,” and said that “far fewer people are dying.”
Calling Trump “totally irresponsible” on managing COVID-19, Joe Biden said the President is “a fool on this” and said Trump is only worried about masks in the interest of protecting his own health and not others.
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Later, as the discussion about the Supreme Court nominee quickly turned to COVID-19, Trump claimed without evidence that 2 million people would have died if Joe Biden were President.
In yet another reference to India and China during a discussion on climate change, Trump said, “China sends up real dirt into the air. Russia does. India does.”
Trump visited India in February at the invitation of Prime Minister Modi, who shares some of Trump’s nationalist orientation, with the two leaders addressing a packed stadium together.
India officially has more than 6.1 million coronavirus cases, second only to the US. The Indian Council of Medical Research has said that the real number could be more than 60 million, basing its findings on blood tests in the densely populated country.
