Trump administration 'greatest failure' of any presidential administration in US history: Harris

Democratic vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris has said that the Trump administration has been the "greatest failure" of any presidential administration in the US history as she condemned President Donald Trump for "failing" to handle the coronavirus crisis.

Harris said millions and millions of people are suffering due to Trump's failure and the US needs a new president "who will embrace science, who will be guided by fact and truth and speak truth to the American people and have a plan."

Harris, in an interview to MSNBC on Wednesday, said that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has a national plan for testing and for treatment and for vaccines, which will be free.

“The president and this administration have been the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country. You just go back to what they knew and when they knew it, and let's start with January 28 when the president, the vice president were informed that this thing was deadly, that it could hurt children, that it was five times more deadly than the flu, that it was airborne, and they covered up that information. They didn't share it with the American people,” Harris alleged.

Over 7.9 million people have tested positive for Covid-19 in the US and 2,17,000 people have died so far.

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“And you put that in the context of the president's failure to tell the American people what was going on so they could protect themselves and their families, much less so that we could have a president and leadership in our country who had a plan to deal with it,” she said.

This presidential election, she said, offers a clear contrast to the American people. “On the one hand, there is Joe Biden, who since March has been saying that the plan that he has had in mind should be implemented. Biden, who has been modeling the right behaviour in terms of wearing a mask. Meanwhile, Donald Trump took the debate stage and made fun of him and then later, of course, we know what happened,” she said.

Harris said that she and her campaign have been making efforts to implement the Covid-19 restrictions during the campaign.

“We've been very safe and, you know, again, the president has made fun of us. But we wear masks. We, you know, social distancing. .. You don't hug people these days. That's not an option. You can't shake hands,” she said. But you can look people in the eye, and you can listen, and you can be there, she added.

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Harris acknowledged that this is definitely a different kind of campaign than anything that they have done before. But “we are making the best of it, and people are engaged. And they're engaged online,” she said.

Asserting that she has faith in the American people and in democracy, Harris alleged that Trump has been a threat to democracy and the integrity of democratic institutions.

“I don't think there's any question about that, not to mention his complicity with foreign actors trying to interfere in our election in 2020, as they did in 2016,” she said.

But, America’s democracy is always going to be as strong as the American people's willingness to fight for its democracy.

“And so it is strong if you look at what people are doing as we speak, again, standing in line, prepared to engage in litigation, if necessary, but registering people to vote, talking with their friends and neighbors about what's at stake,” she said.