President Trump in Thursday’s debate responded to Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s call for plexiglass at restaurants amid the coronavirus pandemic by saying plexiglass is “not the answer.”
During a portion of the debate focused on the pandemic, Biden said restaurants will need to have plexiglass dividers, among other resources, “so people cannot infect one another.”
The president countered, “When you talk about plexiglass, these are restaurants that are dying.”
“These are businesses with no money,” Trump said. “Putting a plexiglass is unbelievably expensive and it’s not the answer. I mean, are you gonna sit there in a cubicle wrapped around with plastic?”
“These are businesses that are dying, Joe,” he continued. “You can’t do that to people. You just can’t.”
Initially, organizers at the debate itself planned to put plexiglass in between the candidates on stage in Nashville, Tenn., but it was removed after both candidates tested negative for COVID-19.
Trump in the coronavirus section of the debate attempted to cast the former vice president as wanting to shut down the country to combat the spread of the virus, but Biden responded the president’s assertions were “simply not true.”
“We ought to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time,” he said, adding the reopening businesses need resources to “safely” reopen.
Trump responded by lamenting the status of New York City, his former longtime hometown, labeling it “a ghost town.”
“Take a look at what’s happened to New York and what’s happened to my wonderful city,” he said. “For so many years I loved it. It was vibrant. It’s dying. Everyone’s leaving New York.”
New York was hit hard by the pandemic in the spring, tracking the most deaths and infections in the country at the time. The infection rate has since gone down but has slightly risen in October.
The U.S. has confirmed more than 8.4 million cases of COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic and almost 223,000 fatalities, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.