President Donald Trump took Democrat challenger Joe Biden to task on the global coronavirus pandemic shutdowns during the first presidential debate in Cleveland, Ohio, on Tuesday night.
"He will destroy this country," Trump told Fox News moderator Chris Wallace. "You know a lot of people, between drugs and alcohol and depression, when you start shutting it down."
"They're hurting people by keeping them closed, they're hurting people," Trump said, referring to Democrat-run states that have kept strict regulations against gatherings and economic activity.
"You got to open these states up. It's not fair. It's like being in prison."
Trump brought up Biden's past declaration he would be willing to shut down the economy again if the health experts wanted to.
That came minutes after Biden hit Trump for economic decline because the Trump administration did shut down during the pandemic.
"I look at New York, it's so sad," Trump said, noting he also worked to bring back Big 10 football. "It's like a ghost town and it might never recover."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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