Wednesday on MSNBC, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) declared that President Donald Trump was “not fully understanding the depth” of the coronavirus crisis.

Anchor Stephanie Ruhle asked, “Yesterday Governor Cuomo said the problems New York is facing with the outbreak of corona is not unique and other cities and states should take it as a warning, it’s going to come to them soon. Juxtapose that against the president’s new position that he wants the whole country back up and running in just a couple of weeks.”

Gillibrand said, “The president is being irresponsible and is not fully understanding the depth of this crisis. The coronavirus has been in the United States, some estimate, for two months. That means it’s been in every community around this country. People travel regularly. The reason why you don’t have a great deal of cases showing up in many states is just because the states don’t have testing up and running. There are a lot of people who are sick, have flus they don’t understand, and will have pneumonia they don’t understand. Once they start testing, they can identify those as COVID-19 cases, and then we can have more data to understand how effective social distancing is.”

She continued, “This is a time we should be on war footing. This is a time everyone in the country has to sacrifice to do everything necessary to defeat COVID-19. This is the common response we can all make. And this money we’re sending to have help for health care and money in people’s pockets will help us fight the virus, will help fight this epidemic. President Trump is not being realistic, and he’s really, I think, being absurd. This will take a long time. All states will be affected. If we do it right, if we increase testing so everybody can get a drive-through test or test at their community health center, we’ll know what we’re up against, and we’ll have the right response to meet that need.”

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