Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi blamed President Trump for the deaths caused by the COVID-19 contagion.
She was asked, "Given all of the demand still out there that you've talked about, how large a package would you like to see President-elect Biden introduce next year as President and how much money for state and local aid do you think should be in that package?"
Pelsoi replied: "Well, we'll make a judgment all the time about what the needs are. I think that when you see the surge and the Coronavirus, you know that we cannot just think it's over or that we can ignore it. The denial, the delay, the distortion, the calling it a hoax has caused hundreds of thousands of deaths, not all of them attributed to President Trump, but most of them that could have been avoided."
"So, this is a matter of life and death," she went on. "The lives of the American people and the livelihood of our economy and their economic security. So we'll make a judgment as we go forward as to what has changed and what—what may be for the better or may be for the worse as we go forward."
The virus emigrated to the US from Wuhan, China, and was not in fact caused by the American president. The Trump administration spearheaded the vaccine effort through a program called Operation Warp Speed, and doses of the vaccines created through that undertaking are already inoculating Americans.
The relief package for Americans impacted by the contagion has been held up by her and her colleagues since May.
