By Austin Johnson

The Ironton Tribune

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Brown took aim at President Donald Trump during his news conference on Wednesday for what he said was a failure to lead on the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Tuesday, the president held a news conference in the Rose Garden at the White House and Brown said, “He’s done something no president has ever done, and that is use the Rose Garden strictly for political speech and a political rally.”

“His favorite part of the job is standing in front of thousands of adoring people and speaking for 90 minutes, and that has been taken away due to the coronavirus,” Brown said. “I think he misses that. He likes those rambling, one-hour talks where he attacks and attacks — he even attacks his own attorney general.”

“He’s going to have speeches like that to divide and distract people from his inability or unwillingness to deal with this terrible coronavirus,” Brown said.
Brown said Trump’s “only modus operandi now is divide the country and distract from the fact that he has failed, absolutely failed, as a leader dealing with the coronavirus.”

“He’s turned a health crisis into an economic crisis, which is about to become a housing crisis,” he said.

Brown stated “the pandemic has been the great reveal,” revealing that mortality rates are much higher among African Americans and Latinos and life expectancy is less “if you are born black in this country and not white.”