Biden slams Trump's handling of coronavirus in rant filled with lies and hypocrisy

Following his victory in the South Carolina primary, former Vice President Joe Biden did a Sunday morning political talk show blitz in an effort to continue building momentum behind his candidacy as he and the Democratic field head into the "Super Tuesday" election on March 3. One way that Biden is working to position himself as his party's front-runner is by attacking President Donald Trump.

Asked by ABC host George Stephanopoulos how his administration would have handled the federal response to the coronavirus differently, Biden went on a rant that was riddled with falsehoods and hypocrisy.

Obama and Biden named a political operative as 'Ebola Czar'

Biden began his answer by stating that his response to the coronavirus would have been "fundamentally different" from Trump's handling of the matter. He then cited the Obama administration's handling of the Ebola virus as an example of his own experience handling virus outbreaks and attacked Trump for "putting someone in charge [Vice President Mike Pence] who is not a scientist."

There's only one problem: The person whom Biden and former president Barack Obama named as the country's "Ebola Czar" in 2014 was Ron Klain, the former vice president's chief of staff. Klain was also not a scientist. In fact, he is a longtime Democratic political operative.

Trump is not "muzzling scientists"

In his diatribe, Biden also accused President Trump of "muzzling scientists." This is not true.

As TheBlaze reported Saturday, the scientist that Biden is referring to, Dr. Anthony Fauci, expressly denied that he or anyone is being "muzzled" at a White House press briefing on the coronavirus.

"I have never been muzzled — never — and I've been doing this since the administration of Ronald Reagan," he said. "I'm not being muzzled by this administration."

In fact, Dr. Fauci explained the White House has cleared his requests to speak to the media about the coronavirus situation.

The CDC's funding was not cut

Biden also claimed the Trump administration "cut the funding for the CDC," a charge that has been debunked by the Associated Press, which analyzed the claim Biden made and determined no such cuts ever took place. In fact, at least one independent expert has applauded the administration's response to the coronavirus.

"The CDC's response has been excellent, as it has been in the past," John Auerbach, president of the nonpartisan Trust for America's Health, which works closely with officials at the local, state, and federal levels to enhance the nation's readiness for health-related crises, said.