Donald Trump criticized President Joe Biden for his "ineffective" handling of the COVID-19 epidemic, despite his own gaffes that hurt his reelection campaign last year.
During an interview on the Fox Business Network program Varney & Co., Trump said that he had hopes that Biden would succeed in tackling the coronaviruses, which has caused a public health crisis and societal upheaval around the globe.
Biden's performance was ripped into by the former president, who was criticized for downplaying the severity of the virus.
"Look, I wanted Biden to be successful on the whole thing on Covid, or as I call it, the China virus," Trump said, using an inflammatory term that was related to a rise in anti-Asian sentiment on social media.
I wanted him to succeed. He's been unsuccessful. What's happened is a disaster. It comes back again. I think he has done a poor job on the coronaviruses.
The former president said that more people in the US have died of COVID-19 in the next two years than in 2020, but didn't mention the global public health challenges that came with the emergence of the Delta variant earlier this year.
Biden has supported vaccine mandates after initially resisting them earlier in his presidency.
The former president said he didn't want to force the vaccine on people.
The former president commented on the new Omicron coronaviruses, which are being fought to stop.
The travel ban will take effect on November 29 for a group of countries in southern Africa, including South Africa, Eswatini, and Botswana.
I am ordering additional air travel restrictions from South Africa and seven other countries as a precautionary measure. The new restrictions will take effect on November 29. After the ban was announced, he said in a statement that he would continue to be guided by what the science and his medical team said.
Biden told a group of reporters last week that he wanted to be cautious.
He said that they don't know a lot about the variant, except that it is a big concern.
In March 2020 Trump issued a travel ban from most European countries, which was one of the world's biggest hotbeds of the disease.
During his campaign last fall, Trump took heat for his inconsistent messaging with the virus, which included praising the speed of vaccine production while also comparing the virus to the flu, and it hurt him with voters.
According to CNN national exit polling, 81% of voters who said COVID-19 was their most important issue in the 2020 presidential election supported Biden.
More than 776,000 people have died of the coronaviruses in the US this year, according to a study.
As of last Wednesday, the Centers for Disease Control says that half of the US population has been fully protected against the coronaviruses.
