Biden’s HHS Nominee Says US ‘In a Nosedive’ on COVID-19

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra at a media conference in Los Angeles, Calif., on Aug. 2, 2018. (Lucy Nicholson/Reuters)

Xavier Becerra, President Joe Biden’s nominee for the head of Health and Human Services (HHS), said Sunday that the United States is seeing an uncontrolled spread of COVID-19, the illness caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.

“The plane is in a nosedive. And we’ve got to pull it up,” Becerra told CNN. “And you’re not going to do that overnight. But we’re going to pull it up. We have to pull it up. Failure is not an option.”

Becerra’s remarks came in response to a statement from Biden earlier in the week suggesting that the United States could do little-to-nothing to stop the spread of the virus in the coming months.

Becerra said that there needs to be leadership at the federal level.

“First you have to rescue people, you have to rescue the economy,” adding, “Biden made it clear: it won’t happen overnight.”

“We can’t just tell the states, ‘Here’s some PPE, some masks, here’s some vaccines, now go do it,’”  he said, without elaborating on a strategy to move forward.

On Friday, Biden said that there is “nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the next several months,” which drew critical feedback on social media.

Biden, after releasing a national COVID-19 strategy, outlined why he’s pushing for a fresh relief bill. He said a briefing from his economic team showed that the public health crisis caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus “is not getting better; it’s deepening,” citing the latest wave of unemployment filings and the rise in the number of daily new cases.

“While the COVID-19 package that passed in December was a first step, as I said at the time, it’s just a down payment. We need more action, and we need to move fast,” he said.

The Democratic president proposed a $1.9 trillion virus relief plan last week featuring $1,400 stimulus payments, an expansion of unemployment benefits, funding to state and local governments, and more.

According to federal officials, more than 400,000 Americans have died from the CCP virus since the start of the pandemic.

Becerra is currently the attorney general for California. Biden’s choice to nominate him to the HHS surprised some as Becerra has no medical background.

However, Becerra has appealed to the Supreme Court to defend the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare.

“We just finished oral arguments at the Supreme Court to defend the entire Affordable Care Act. The ACA saves lives. It is the law of the land. It is legal. We are confident the Supreme Court will agree,” he wrote on Twitter in November 2020.