Karl Rove rips Biden suggestion he would have handled pandemic differently: 'Baloney and he knows it'

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Karl Rove fact checks Joe Biden's response to the COVID-19 pandemic

Coronavirus crisis has become a key campaign issue in 2020; Karl Rove, former White House deputy chief of staff, revisits Joe Biden's initial response to COVID.

Democratic presdential candidate Joe Biden initially thought the coronavirus pandemic "was not going to be a big deal," contrary to his current claims, Fox News contributor Karl Rove argued on "Your World" Thursday.

"His first explanation of what he would do is on January 27th," Rove explained to host Neil Cavuto. "He writes an op-ed in USA Today and he says this could be a pandemic and I've got four things that I suggest we need to do -- three of them involving passing legislation in 2021 after he took office next January.

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"He would pass three bills and then he would reauthorize a federal appropriation for hospitals treating pandemic patients, which was coming up in May to be renewed, which Congress renews routinely. So, he had no idea."

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed published Wednesday, Rove argued that last week's Democratic National Convention attempted to give the inaccurate perception that Biden would have handled the pandemic better than Trump.

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In the same USA Today op-ed Biden described Trump as the "worst possible leader to deal with coronavirus outbreak" and accused the White House of having "rolled back much of the progress President Obama and I made to strengthen global health security.

"He proposed draconian cuts to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Agency for International Development — the very agencies we need to fight this outbreak and prevent future ones," wrote the former vice president.

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Rove noted that Biden was holding in-person rallies as late as March 9, when the severity of the pandemic was becoming apparent.

"As late as early April, he is talking about the utility of voting in person as opposed to doing a mail-in ballot," Rove said. "So, the idea that he is somehow on top of this is baloney, and he knows it."