Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden slammed Attorney General William Barr’s recent comments about coronavirus restrictions on Thursday, calling the remarks “sick” during a town hall.
Barr said Wednesday in northern Virginia that coronavirus restrictions are the “greatest intrusion on civil liberties” since slavery.
“What Bill Barr recently said is outrageous,” Biden told anchor Anderson Cooper at the forum outside of Scranton, Pa.
“I will tell you what takes away your freedom, not being able to see your kid, not being able to go to the football game or baseball game, not seeing your mom or dad sick in the hospital, not being able to do the things, that’s what is costing us our freedom,” he added.
Barr came under fire from numerous Democrats on Thursday after he made the comments during an event at the conservative-leaning Hillsdale College in Michigan.
“You know, putting a national lockdown, stay-at-home orders is like house arrest. Other than slavery, which was a different kind of restraint, this is the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history,” the attorney general said, hitting governors who moved to close nonessential businesses in their states in an effort to get residents to stay home.
“Even the most well-meaning people can do great damage if they lose perspective,” Barr said. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions, as they say. Individual prosecutors can sometimes become headhunters, consumed with taking down their target.”
House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) called Barr’s remarks the “most ridiculous, tone-deaf, God-awful things I have ever heard.”
“It is incredible that the chief law enforcement officer in this country would equate human bondage to expert advice to save lives,” Clyburn told CNN on Thursday.
“Slavery was not about saving lives, it was about devaluing the lives. This pandemic is a threat to human life and the experts — the medical experts, the scientists, are telling us what it takes to respond successfully to this pandemic,” he added.