U.S Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden said President Donald Trump Administration’s way of handling the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S was one of the reasons he was trusted by fewer foreigners compared to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping.
Biden said this during a CNN town hall meeting in the Pennsylvania state.
The U.S is set to hold a presidential election on November 3.
“I’ve been doing this for a long time. I never ever thought I would see such a thoroughly totally irresponsible administration. It’s one of the reasons why if you take a look at the Pew Foundation poll —guess what, Russia’s Putin, China’s Xi Jinping are trusted by more people in the world than the president of America. And one of the reasons they say is COVID-19”.
According to Biden, not only did the Trump administration’s response to COVID-19 cause loss of lives in the U.S, but it also caused Washington “to lose [its] influence in ways that are profound”.
The Democrat politician further described China as a “serious competitor” and Russia as an “opponent” to the U.S, vowing more sanctions on Moscow in the case if it meddles in the upcoming presidential election.
The U.S repeatedly accused Russia of meddling in its political processes, in particular, during the 2016 presidential election. Moscow has consistently denied these allegations.
In 2019, U.S Special Counsel Robert Mueller, mandated to investigate the alleged interference, found no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
But established that Moscow systematically interfered in the U.S elections via two chief methods —social media campaigns and intelligence-backed cyberattacks.
Moscow responded by pointing to the lack of actual evidence to support this assumption.
