Joe Biden, blaming Donald Trump, says U.S. has more coronavirus cases than China

Democratic front-runner Joseph R. Biden, in blaming President Trump for rising unemployment Thursday, said the U.S. “has more coronavirus cases than anywhere in the world.”

His comment came despite a U.S. intelligence community report shared with the White House that has concluded China concealed the extent of its outbreak by underreporting both its total cases and deaths.

“Donald Trump is not responsible for the coronavirus, but he is responsible for failing to prepare our nation: for the months during which he continually neglected dire warnings from experts and downplayed the threat to us, and for the erratic and unacceptably slow federal response that has tragically lagged behind other countries,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. “Now we have more coronavirus cases than anywhere in the world, and that is dealing body-blows to our economy and to the welfare and well-being of millions upon millions of Americans.”

The U.S. had more than 216,000 cases of COVID-19 as of Thursday, compared with more than 82,000 in China, according to the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus resource center’s tracker. China had more than 3,300 deaths, a number widely disputed, compared with more 5,100 deaths in the U.S.

The Labor Department said Thursday that unemployment claims soared to 6.6 million last week, a record that was double the previous week’s record, as the pandemic forced the shutdown of businesses across the country.

Mr. Trump said Wednesday that he’d be happy to take a phone call from Mr. Biden offering advice on fighting the outbreak.

The Trump campaign said the president “is leading the nation through the coronavirus crisis.”“But Joe Biden has decided to fill the role of the opposition, ineffectively sniping from the sidelines, stumbling through television interviews, and hoping for relevance and political gain,” said campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh. “Americans are facing a public health emergency and are worried about their jobs and the economy, but Joe Biden’s record and proposals prove that he is ill-suited for a role in this fight.”

Mr. Murtaugh said Mr. Biden “oversaw the most sluggish economic recovery this country has seen since World War II” while vice president.

“He supported disastrous, job-killing trade deals like NAFTA and TPP and his proposal to enact the economy-strangling Green New Deal as a response to this crisis is about the worst remedy imaginable,” he said. “On top of that, Biden has pledged to eliminate the Trump tax cuts, which cut taxes for the vast majority of American taxpayers.”

He said Mr. Trump “has been hard at work, negotiating the relief package for unemployed workers and affected businesses and leading in this time of crisis.”

“The president’s policies drove the American economy to the greatest heights in half a century, and he is the best person to lead us through this difficult period,” Mr. Murtaugh said.