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Kellyanne Conway said Wednesday that former Vice President Joe Biden should call the White House and “offer some support,” rather than criticizing President Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Conway, counselor to the president, in an interview with “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday, said Biden’s recent comments about the Trump administration’s efforts to combat the spread of COVID-19 were “disappointing.”
BIDEN SAYS TRUMP 'HAS BEEN VERY SLOW TO ACT' ON COVID-19
“I think it’s really disappointing to have President Obama’s number two, who apparently doesn’t talk much to him, out there, criticizing, instead of saying 'hey, here is what we did that we thought was effective,'” Conway explained.
“Why doesn’t Vice President Biden call the White House today and offer some support?” Conway asked, noting that Biden is “in his bunker” in Wilmington, Del.
Conway went on to maintain that the White House is not focused on political rhetoric, but instead a response to curb the outbreak of COVID-19.
“I have to tell you, we’re not talking about politics here at the White House at all,” she explained. We’re talking about ventilators and vaccines, not Biden and Bernie. There’s really no time for that, but it’s very disappointing when you see the criticism.”
She added: “I think the critics and the naysayers seem so much more small and so much more shrill and unhelpful and petty than they ever have.”
Biden deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield told Fox News on Wednesday, though, that the former vice president has offered to share his expertise with the president.
"Vice President Biden has been extending this exact offer for weeks, and he did so again on the air last night," Bedingfield said in a statement to Fox News. "As he has said repeatedly, Donald Trump is not accountable for coronavirus itself -- but he is accountable for the federal government's slow and chaotic response to this outbreak."
She added: "Unfortunately, Trump spent months after the virus was discovered disregarding repeated warnings from his scientific and intelligence experts, and downplaying the threat of this outbreak to the American people."
Bedingfield said: "The Obama-Biden administration even wrote a literal playbook for pandemic response, but unfortunately Trump's administration left it on the shelf."
Biden will likely be the Democratic nominee, after reclaiming his front-runner status on Super Tuesday and notching victories in subsequent primary contests to build a huge delegate lead over rival Bernie Sanders.
Biden, during the coronavirus outbreak, has been hosting virtual press conferences and has often criticized the president’s response to the outbreak.
CORONAVIRUS DEATHS TOP 4,000 IN US, SURPASS CHINA
During a CNN interview on Tuesday, Biden said that Trump “is not responsible for the coronavirus but he is responsible for using all the power at his disposal to be able to deal with this virus.”
Biden said Trump has “been very slow to act,” and stressed that “many of the things he says are simply not accurate.”
Biden added that “the things he says don’t seem to comport with what everybody else knows. And I wish he’d listen more to the scientists and think less about the political consequences.”
As of Wednesday morning, the U.S. reported more than 189,600 positive cases of COVID-19 and more than 4,000 deaths.