President Donald Trump's tweet declaring that he will temporarily suspend all immigration to the United States is similar to his order restricting travel from China back in January, National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien said Tuesday.
"The president is trying to do everything can he to put the health of the American people first in this crisis," said O' Brien on Fox News' "Fox and Friends." "It's not dissimilar to the restrictions on travel from China that he implemented back on January 29. At the very outset of this public crisis. We think that those restrictions save saved thousands or tens of thousands of lives."
Former Vice President Joe Biden slammed the China decision as being xenophobic, said O'Brien, but "the president is not going to be guided by politics here. He is going to be guided by doing what's best for the health of the American people."
Meanwhile, O'Brien said Trump does not regret the compliments he gave China's President Xi Jinping early on about the country's handling of the coronavirus emergency.
"He was clear from the outset we needed to get the CDC into China," said O'Brien. "There is a huge burden on China to tell us where this came from. Did it come from a lab? Did it come from a wet market? Neither of those are good answers."
He also said he thinks the United States and the Trump administration is being "pretty tough" on China.
"Remember, this is the fourth or fifth plague to come out of China since (the year) 2,000," said O'Brien. "We have to stop the export of these viruses from China. We are going to make our position and we have made our position on these issues very clear to the Chinese."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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