Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee for the November election, said President Donald Trump "ignored" a "playbook" left for him by the previous administration on how to deal with a pandemic.
"President Obama and I left a playbook for President Trump on how to fight pandemics. He flat-out ignored it. And we're all paying the price every day," Biden tweeted Thursday night.
The tweet got noticed by former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell, who accused Biden of not speaking out earlier this year with advice on how the United States could combat COVID-19.
"You knew how to stop a virus that started in China and didn't yell up from the basement?" Grenell wrote.
Grenell's mention of "the basement" was in reference to Biden's decision to spend much of his time at home, rather than out campaigning, during the pandemic.
Biden and President Barack Obama grappled with the 2009 swine flu pandemic. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 60.8 million Americans contracted the virus and 12,469 died.