Pelosi: ‘As the president fiddles, people are dying’

“As the president fiddles, people are dying,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Sunday morning.

Speaking to host Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Pelosi said President Donald Trump has not taken the coronavirus crisis seriously enough from day one — and still hasn’t done enough.

“The president, his denial at the beginning, was deadly,“ she said, saying the federal government is still lagging when it comes to getting testing kits and medical equipment to where they are needed.

“His delaying of getting equipment to where — it continues — his delay in getting equipment to where it's needed is deadly. And now I think the best thing would be to do is to prevent more loss of life, rather than open things up,“ she told Tapper.

Pelosi cited the need for “testing, testing, testing” as the key step going forward.

“This is such a tragedy. We don’t even know the magnitude of it because we don’t have adequate testing,” she said.

Pelosi also attacked Trump for issuing a signing statement that would limit oversight over a $2 trillion relief package approved last week. Trump’s signing statement rejected some of the congressional oversight called for in the bipartisan legislation.

“We don’t accept that. We don’t accept that. We will have our oversight,“ Pelosi said, adding: “It’s just the same, business as usual for the president.“

The California Democrat said that she was still troubled by the president’s rhetoric and what she perceived as a lack of perspective on his part.

“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,” she said.