Pelosi: Trump's downplaying of coronavirus has cost American lives  Christopher Wilson   Yahoo News•   March 29, 2020

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sharpened her criticism of President Trump’s early dismissal of the coronavirus, saying the delay cost American lives.

“His denial at the beginning was deadly,” said Pelosi to open her interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper.

“His delaying of getting equipment — it continues — his delaying of getting equipment to where it is needed is deadly, and now I think the best thing is to prevent more loss of life rather than open things up because we just don’t know. We have to have testing, testing, testing — that’s what we said from the start before we can evaluate the nature of it in some of these other regions as well.”

Later in the interview, Pelosi said: “As the president fiddles, people are dying.”

Trump has repeatedly attacked certain Democratic governors, including Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Jay Inslee of Washington, calling them ineffective and issuing insults. On Friday, Trump said at a White House briefing that he wanted governors to be “appreciative” of the federal response. “They don’t treat you right, I don’t call,” he said.

“Are you saying his downplaying is ultimately cost American lives?” Tapper asked Pelosi.

“Yes, I am. I’m saying that,” said Pelosi. “The other day when he was signing the bill, he said, ‘Just think, 20 days ago everything was great.’ No, everything wasn’t great; we had nearly 500 cases and 17 deaths already, and in that 20 days because we weren’t prepared, we now have 2,000 deaths and 100,000 cases.”

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