Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., ripped congressional Democrats, warning "we shouldn't be playing politics" with the coronavirus.
Rubio made his remarks in a video posted to Twitter on Thursday morning.
"We measure everything today in public policy by how much money you're going to throw at the problem," he said.
The White House on Monday sent lawmakers a request for $2.5 billion to address the deadly outbreak. But Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wants $8.5 billion in emergency funding to fight the coronavirus.
"But what is that number based on?" Rubio said.
"Well, how do we know that? Maybe we need more. Maybe we need less. What it's based on is 'whatever [President Donald] Trump asks for, we're going to ask for three times more, so we can appear to care more about it than he does.'
"I think, on this issue, we shouldn't be playing politics."
Rubio also defended Trump's initial action in fighting the coronavirus.
"This administration, I thought, acted pretty decisively," he said. "When this thing emerged, they stopped all the flights from China. Europe is still letting flights come in."
Rubio said he still does not understand why the coronavirus is being covered like a political story.
"This thing came out of China," he said. "It did not emerge here. It emerged from China. [The Chinese] haven't been transparent. They're still not being transparent. And it's making it very difficult for researchers to come up with a test, come up with a treatment, come up with a vaccine."
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.