'You've gone down the wrong path. Ask for directions': Pelosi to Trump on Covid-19 response

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went after President Trump on Thursday over his response to the pandemic.

"The President has made so many bad executive decisions," she said, reports the CNN.

"Observing his behavior, I have concluded that he is like the man who refuses to ask for directions. All of the answers are there. The scientists have the answers. We know that testing, tracing, treating, distancing, masking, sanitation can stop the spread of this virus. And yet the President continues to go down the wrong path and refuses to ask for directions from scientists who know better than any of us."

"Mr President, admit it. You've gone down the wrong path. Ask for directions," she added later.

"Ask for directions from our scientists who know better."

Pelosi also reiterated Democrats' call for Trump to fully implement the Defense Production Act for testing, PPE and other items needed to deal with the pandemic.

"There is not enough equipment, but we could have it, if the President executed the Defense Production Act," she said. "This is such a massive dereliction of duty — people are dying."

Asked if she is speaking with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows or anybody else in the administration about the next stimulus bill, Pelosi said she has had conversations on individual items. 

She added that Senate Republicans' suggested price tag of $1.3 trillion for the next bill is not enough. "We should have trillions of dollars to prop up workers," she said.

She said an Occupational Safety and Health Administration standard to protect employees during the pandemic is "absolutely essential for us to have" in the next package, as well as a rent moratorium and extension of unemployment insurance.

"We know that it will happen. They have to do unemployment insurance," she said of Republicans, who have so far been skeptical about extending the expanded benefits, which are set to expire at the end of the month.

She said not passing another ambitious stimulus package now will hurt the country further down the road.