Mike Bloomberg's campaign said Wednesday it would air a new 30-second ad, one entitled "Pandemic," adding that the U.S. is ill-prepared for the threat posed by the spread of the coronavirus because of President Donald Trump's budget cuts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other agencies.
"With the virus officially hitting the U.S. and spreading, Americans are becoming increasingly worried for their health and safety — but because of President Trump's reckless cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's funding and his senseless elimination of protective measures put in place following the last pandemic Ebola virus outbreak, the U.S. is underprepared for coronavirus," Bloomberg's campaign said, according to a report in the New York Post.
The 30-second ad by Bloomberg, the media mogul and former New York City mayor who has spent millions of dollars from his own personal coffers on his campaign ads, is slated to run nationally on cable, broadcast, and digital platforms, the Post said.
"Trump is putting American lives at risk every day, ignoring science, claiming the virus will 'miraculously' disappear by April and relying on 'warm weather' to end the spread of the virus," the campaign said.
A narrator in the ad defended Bloomberg's record as a chief executive, saying he has the experience to deal with what could be a U.S. outbreak of the coronavirus.
"Managing a crisis is what Mike Bloomberg does," the narrator says. "In the aftermath of 9/11, he steadied and rebuilt America’s largest city, oversaw emergency response to natural disasters, upgraded hospital preparedness to manage health crises, and he's funding cutting-edge research to contain epidemics."
Trump held a news conference Wednesday at the White House in an effort to ease the worries of Americans and the concerns of the financial markets, which have plummeted over the past few days in part because of uncertainties surrounding the virus. Trump designated Vice President Mike Pence the point person in his coronavirus prevention task force.
Trump also said the risks to Americans from the virus remained very low, though the CDC has reported the first possible instance of a community-spread coronavirus patient in the U.S.