(CNN) With less than three days left in a pandemic-dominated campaign, President Donald Trump continues to make baseless statements about the pandemic, including the politically dangerous claim that US doctors profit from Covid-19 deaths during a visit to the critical Midwest constituency, where former Vice President Biden offered a contrasting message of unity and promised a more forceful response to defeat the virus.
The two candidates' conflicting messages came into stark contrast as they campaigned in key states this weekend, each trying to stretch his reach. course towards 270 electoral votes. With swings in the Midwest and Pennsylvania, Trump and Biden are now vying for those key voters who abandoned the Democrats four years ago for Trump's foreign policy message.
Trump's horrific attack on doctors on Friday came on a day when the US marked new world record for daily coronavirus cases and 17 states saw record hospitalizations. Instead of addressing these challenges, the President tried to explain away the growing number of US cases by making the false claim in Michigan that US doctors are inflating the number of coronavirus cases because “they get more money if someone dies from Covid”.
“Our doctors are very smart people. So what they're doing is saying, 'I'm sorry, but everybody's dying of Covid,'” Trump said at a rally in Waterford Township, Michigan, on Friday. Unearthing conspiracy theories from the bowels of the Internet, the President claimed without evidence that doctors from other countries are citing underlying diseases as the cause of death, while US doctors are choosing the coronavirus.
See the confrontations between Trump and Biden
“With us, when in doubt – choose Covid,” Trump said. “Now they're going to say, 'Oh, that's terrible what he said,' but it's true. It's like $2,000 more, so you're going to get more money.”
Campaigning with Biden in Michigan on Saturday, Former President Barack Obama was sharply critical of Trump's comments about doctors — and it's incredible that the attack was part of the President's closing remarks.
“He's jealous of the media coverage of Covid and now he's accusing doctors of profiting from this pandemic – think about that,” Obama said. “He can't understand, he doesn't understand the idea that someone would risk their life to save others without trying to make money.”
“If Trump had been focused on Covid from the beginning, cases would not have reached new record highs across the country,” Obama added, noting that some areas where Trump has held rallies have seen spikes on occasions “after he leaves town” and mocks Trump's “obsession” with crowd size amid a pandemic.
“You know when a country goes through a pandemic, that's not what you're supposed to be worried about,” Obama said. “And that's the difference between Joe Biden and Trump right there. Trump cares about feeding his ego. Joe cares about keeping you and your family safe. And he cares less about feeding his ego by having big crowds than make sure that more and more people don't get sick. That's what you should expect from a president.”
Obama and Biden spent the day together in Michigan on Saturday, where Trump — who narrowly won the state in 2016 — had been the day before. Biden leads Trump 53% to 41% in Michigan, according to a CNN poll was released Saturday, which is longer than most public polls there, but the results for each candidate are within the poll's margin of error of the median estimated support for that candidate.
Even with some voters turning away from the president because they disapprove of his handling of the virus, he has continued to insist on holding massive rallies — including four in Pennsylvania alone on Saturday — which only draws attention to the fact that he is dangerously flouting safety advice from his own experts. at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, daring Americans to hold him accountable on Election Day.
During his first stop in Pennsylvania on Saturday, Trump continued to downplay the impact of the coronavirus on the nation, noting that he and first lady Melania Trump have recovered — without acknowledging that they received the highest possible medical care in the country and that he had access to experimental treatments unavailable to most Americans.
Underestimating the serious risk of the virus to Americans with pre-existing conditions, Trump falsely claimed that “because of our relentless efforts, the recovery rate right now for Covid, or China virus or Chinese plague, is 99.7%,” using a racist term to describe the virus.
Not only has Trump ignored the thousands of Americans who have died from the virus, but there is still not enough evidence to understand the long-term effects on patients who have contracted the disease. Trump, who pledged to “end” the virus with “science, medicine and breakthrough treatments,” also criticized Biden's relentless focus on Covid-19 during his visit to Pennsylvania on Saturday.
“All he does is talk about Covid, Covid,” Trump said of Biden in Bucks County. “He has nothing else to talk about… We agree it's serious and we've done an incredible job. And at some point they're going to acknowledge that.”
Trump's claims about for-profit doctors sparked backlash beyond the campaign trail. Susan Bailey, president of the American Medical Association, said in a statement that the allegation that doctors are overdiagnosing Covid-19 patients or “lying to line their pockets is a malicious, outrageous and completely misplaced accusation”.
“Covid-19 cases are at record highs today,” Bailey said as Friday marked the highest single day of cases in the United States since the pandemic began. “Instead of attacking us and making baseless accusations against doctors, our leaders should follow the science and urge adherence to the public health measures we know work — wearing a mask, washing hands and practicing physical distancing.”
Emergency physician and former Baltimore Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on Friday night that doctors are risking their lives now that one person is now being diagnosed with Covid-19 every second.
“We have an American dying of coronavirus every two minutes, and that number is rising,” Wen told “The Situation Room.” “In some states, one out of every two people tested is positive. That means we're not testing nearly enough, and every person who tests positive is a canary in a coal mine.”
Wen added that there are likely to be “many dozens more cases that we are not detecting and that the escalation will increase in the coming weeks.”
Trump is turning against the nation's focus on Covid-19
The angry tone of Trump's rallies and his attacks on doctors stem in part from his frustration that the country is so focused on the pandemic in the final days of the election. Poll after poll has shown that the coronavirus is the top issue on the minds of American voters, and a large majority of the electorate disapproves of Trump's handling of the virus.
While Trump has shied away from holding large rallies in other states, Minnesota has been particularly careful with both enforcement and contact tracing, and Trump on Friday lashed out at Minnesota officials who limited the size of his rally over concerns about security.
The Minnesota Department of Health reported three cases of Covid-19 related to Trump campaign events held in the state in September. The state health department has linked at least 23 cases to Trump campaign rallies with the president in Bemidji and Duluth and a rally with Vice President Mike Pence in Minneapolis, according to information the department provided to CNN in an email last week. .
But dismissing safety concerns as irrelevant, Trump argued that state officials, including Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Democrat, have created two sets of standards — one for protesters who demonstrated against police brutality after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May. and a different set for his supporters.
“Keith Ellison has sided with flag-burning extremists against law-abiding Americans. He's treating you like second-class citizens,” Trump said in Rochester, Minnesota, on Friday night, where state officials limited the crowd to 250 people. “He believes pro-American voters have fewer rights than anti-American protesters.”
As part of that argument, Trump once again conflated Black Lives Matter protests, which have been largely peaceful across the country this year, with the much smaller number of protests that have turned violent and served as a trump card as he tries to argued that Biden would go soft on criminals while fueling what he described as “bad anti-police rhetoric.”
Speaking in Falcon Heights, a St. Paul suburb, Biden countered that argument by zeroing in on the difference between peaceful protesters and violent rioters who took advantage of this year's racial justice movement.
“Burning and looting is not protest, it is violence plain and simple — and it will not be tolerated,” Biden said at his event, which he said was seven miles from where Floyd was killed by a police officer. “But these protests are a cry for justice.”
The former vice president argued that Trump's divisive language about the protests and his attempt to pit Americans “against each other based on race, gender, ethnicity, and national origin” are part of an effort to distract caution from handling the pandemic.
During the final event of the day in Milwaukee on Friday, Biden noted that the state is now facing a record level of coronavirus hospitalizations.
“This week, Wisconsin, like other states, hit a new record for daily cases. Hospitals are running out of beds, they just had to open a hospital. That's what we're dealing with. Now we're at 9 million cases.” Biden said Friday night. “Millions of people out of work, on the sidelines and unable to see the light. They're not sure how dark it's going to stay … and what bothers me the most was a President who gave up.”
