A top Trump campaign adviser said Tuesday that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's criticisms of President Trump and the Republican's handling of the coronavirus pandemic should be met with skepticism.

Mercedes Schlapp told "The Story" on Tuesday that Biden and President Obama "depleted" the national strategic stockpile of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and other health-related items and prematurely stopped H1N1 flu vaccine testing.

"I think we are seeing progress being made, and we know more about the pandemic today than we did back then so I think progress is being made," she said in response to Trump's press conference on the pandemic earlier in the evening.

"We need to ensure that we remember that with Joe Biden, there was such weak leadership when it came to the Swine Flu where they ended up depleting our stockpile, where they halted testing when it came to vaccines and that just shows weak leadership from Joe Biden as opposed to what we have seen with President Trump."

The Obama administration sought several cuts in funding for the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) of personal protective equipment (PPE) and other critical medical supplies -- although some of the reductions were relatively small, and most came after Republicans implemented a new law to restrict federal discretionary spending, records reviewed by Fox News show.

In its fiscal 2011 budget, submitted in early 2010, the Obama administration explicitly sought a reduction in the SNS: "CDC requests $523,533,000 for the Strategic National Stockpile in FY 2011, a decrease of $72,216,000 below the FY 2010 Omnibus," the budget request reads.

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Host Martha MacCallum noted that, Schlapp's contention notwithstanding, Biden continues to lead Trump in recent opinion polling when it comes to which politician would be better to handle pandemic response.

Schlapp added that voters should look to the relative visibility and accessibility of both Trump and Biden. She criticized the Delaware Democrat for refusing to take questions following an address in New Castle, Del., earlier Tuesday.

For his part, Biden said at the time that he would look to take questions in the near future, adding he had another engagement to attend.

In New Castle, Biden slammed Trump's handling of the pandemic:

“Donald Trump fails the most important test to be the American president -- the duty to care for you [and] for all of us,” he said.

Fox News' Gregg Re contributed to this report.