The growing coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. may go down as President Trump’s Hurricane Katrina if his administration doesn’t pick up their game, suggests one powerful ex-governor.

“I mean listen, it [the response] has been sad,” said influential former Democratic Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe on Yahoo Finance’s The First Trade. “He called it a hoax, said it will go away in the spring. And now we have seen how it has affected so many Americans. This is very serious.”

“This could be devastating for our economy,” continued McAuliffe.

The Trump administration is starting to take heavy fire from people on both sides of the aisle and average Americans on the handling of the coronavirus epidemic.

Trump has shaken up his coronavirus response team, putting Vice President Mike Pence (with a checkered history on the topic of health matters) in charge. They have tried to talk up the strength of the U.S. economy via TV interviews, even as global economic growth has begun to tank right along with equities markets.

View photos President Donald Trump, joined by Vice President Mike Pence, speaks about the coronavirus in the press briefing room at the White House, Saturday, Feb. 29, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster) More

Pence has said Democratic politicians such as McAuliffe are politicizing the issue. Democrats have shot back at the notion and ramped up public pressure on the Trump administration to get things in better order.

“I think they are clueless in dealing with this,” McAuliffe says.

In the meantime, as the heated back and forth in DC plays out, the coronavirus situation in the U.S. worsens.

The total number of coronavirus cases in the U.S. spiked by two dozen over the weekend. The first two deaths from the outbreak were also confirmed.

View photos coronavirus map More

As of Monday morning, 89 people in the U.S. have been confirmed to have the coronavirus. Global infections are now approaching 90,000.

Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and co-anchor of The First Trade at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.

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