President Donald Trump said that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden “wants to shut down the country” during a heated Tuesday night debate exchange.
Biden last month told ABC’s David Muir that he would “shut it down” if scientists recommended another lockdown to fight the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
“You have been much more reluctant than President Trump about reopening the economy and schools. Why, sir?” asked moderator Chris Wallace.
WATCH:
Trump blasts Biden on lockdowns:
“Wait a minute, Joe, let me shut you down for a second, Joe, just for one second. He wants to shut down the country.” pic.twitter.com/tbVley3bUZ
— Scott Morefield (@SKMorefield) September 30, 2020
“Because he doesn’t have a plan,” Biden responded. “If I were running it, I would have a plan. You have got to provide these businesses the ability to have the money to be able to reopen, with the PPE as well as with the sanitation that they need.”
After some crosstalk in which Biden expressed his wish that Trump “shush for a minute,” Wallace brought it back to the “question of reopening.”
“He wants to shut down this country and I want to keep it open,” Trump insisted.
After Biden tried to interject, Trump said: “Wait a minute, Joe, let me shut you down for a second, Joe, just for one second. He wants to shut down the country. We just went through it. We had to because we didn’t know anything about the disease. Now we found that elderly people with heart problems and diabetes and different problems are very, very vulnerable.” (RELATED: Stanford’s Dr. Scott Atlas: There Is ‘No Science Behind Having Children Not Attend Schools’)
“We learned a lot,” Trump continued. “Young children aren’t, even younger people aren’t. We’ve learned a lot. But he wants to shut it down. More people will be hurt by continuing. If you look at Pennsylvania, if you look at certain states that have been shut down, they have Democratic governors all. One other reason they shut down is because they want to keep it shut down until after the election, November 3rd. Those states are not doing well that are shut down.”
