During a call with governors on Monday, President Biden said that “there is no federal solution” to the COVID-19 pandemic and that it needs to be solved at the state level, despite repeatedly blaming former President Trump for the severity of the pandemic during his 2020 presidential campaign.

“One word of concern or encouragement for your team is that as you look towards federal solutions that will help alleviate the challenge, make sure that we do not let federal solutions stand in the way of state solutions,” Arkansas Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson said to Biden. “The production of 500 million rapid tests that will be distributed by the federal government is great, but obviously that dries up the supply chain for the solutions that we might offer as governor.”

“There is no federal solution. This gets solved at the state level,” Biden responded.

“I’m looking at [New Hampshire Republican] Gov. [Chris] Sununu on the board here. He talks about that a lot,” Biden added. “And it ultimately gets down to where the rubber meets the road and that’s where the patient is in need of help, or preventing the need for help.”

However, during his 2020 presidential campaign, Biden promised numerous times to “shut down” the virus if he was elected, and regularly blamed then-President Trump for the impact of the virus.

 

After an NBC Town Hall in October 2020, for example, then-presidential candidate Biden said that Trump was responsible for the Americans who died from COVID-19 and that Trump should take responsibility. Biden posted a clip of his accusations from the Town Hall on Facebook with the caption, “More than 200,000 Americans have died. 50,000 Americans are getting the virus every day. 1,000 a day are dying. This is a national emergency…The President should take responsibility.”

Biden’s comments that “there is no federal solution” to the COVID-19 pandemic come shortly after the number of Americans who died from COVID-19 under Biden surpassed the number that died under former President Trump.