Tommy Tuberville, who’s vying for Alabama’s U.S. Senate seat, on Thursday dismissed investigating China over their role in the coronavirus outbreak because “we’ve gotta worry about” the United States.
Tuberville is running against President Donald Trump’s former Attorney General Jeff Sessions in a primary runoff to face Democratic incumbent Senator Doug Jones.
The U.S. intelligence community reportedly concluded China had lied about the initial COVID-19 outbreak by under reporting deaths, Bloomberg reported Wednesday.
“Well, we can’t worry about China right now. We’ve gotta worry about Alabama and this country,” Tuberville said on Talk 99.5’s “Matt and Aunie Show” Thursday morning. (RELATED: Trump Campaign Tells Jeff Sessions To Move On — ‘Do Not Support Your Efforts’)
“You know, I hear about all these people hollering for investigations and we always investigate we don’t do anything to them. We got investigations going on in D.C. right now with a bunch of crooks.”
“It’s all about investigations from our leaders…they investigate and nothing ever comes of it, so right now we’ve gotta worry about this country,” the former college football coach added.
Amazingly @TTuberville said yesterday “We can’t worry about China right now.” China’s where the virus is from, and their deliberate lies hid the danger & resulted in a pandemic that never should’ve happened! We must take on China NOW and WIN, not run scared like Tommy Tuberville!
— Jeff Sessions (@jeffsessions) April 3, 2020
Sessions later responded to his opponent’s comments, blaming China for the pandemic, and claimed, “We must take on China NOW and WIN, not run scared like Tommy Tuberville!”
The president’s reelection campaign sent Sessions a letter Tuesday requesting he ceased using Trump’s name for campaign advertisements, adding, “President Trump and his campaign do not support your efforts to return to the U.S. Senate.”
According to USA Today, Trump endorsed Tuberville back in March, saying, “Tommy was a terrific head football coach at Auburn University. He is a REAL LEADER who will never let MAGA/KAG, or our Country, down!”
“If Jeff Sessions was too afraid to stand up to Robert Mueller, how can we ever expect him to stand up to China,” Tuberville’s campaign wrote in a statement to Yellowhammer. “Like President Trump, Coach Tuberville believes we should focus all of our resources on ending the Coronavirus pandemic, fixing our economy, and helping the Alabamians who need help now. Once that’s done, he’ll stand with the president to hold the Chinese fully accountable, unlike Jeff Sessions, who voted with Ted Kennedy and John Kerry to reward China with permanent trade status.”
Currently there is over 300,000 reported cases of the coronavirus in the United States resulting in 8,407 deaths.