Warren Hammers Pence on Coronavirus: ‘I Can’t Think of a Worse Person to Put in Charge’

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren went after Vice President Mike Pence on Friday following the White House’s directive to coordinate all statements and public appearances by government health officials and scientists with Pence’s office.

Warren cited Pence’s tenure as governor of Indiana as cause for concern, specifically his delayed response to an HIV outbreak due to his moral opposition to the state conducting a needle exchange.

“He is actually the one guy around who has experience in dealing with a virus that gets out of control, only he’s the guy who went in exactly the wrong direction,” Warren said on MSNBC’s All in With Chris Hayes. “He paid more attention to politics than he did to science, and that really created a health crisis in his state of Indiana. I cannot think of a worse person to put in charge of dealing with this coronavirus now.”

Warren also criticized the Trump administration for calling for funding to the Centers for Disease Control to be cut.

“As soon as this virus started cropping up elsewhere in the world, we should have been on top of it,” Warren said. “We should have been putting the money into the research and into making sure we have vaccines available, that we have tests available, and we need a coordinating person in the White House who is a true leader.”

The Trump administration in 2018 fired key officials connected to the U.S. pandemic response, and did not replace them.

Watch the video above, via MSNBC.