First Minister says Trump should be more responsible over Covid-19
Nicola Sturgeon has said US president Donald Trump should be “more responsible” in his public utterances about coronavirus.
The Scottish First Minister said it was important that leaders gave “clear advice on the issue” during her daily coronavirus briefing yesterday.
Ms Sturgeon spoke out as it emerged that Boris Johnson was planning to meet the US president in America next month ahead of the G7 summit.
Mr Trump has previously come under fire for suggesting that injecting disinfectant could be looked at as a treatment for Covid-19.
He also revealed last week he was taking the unproven malaria drug hydroxychloroquine to fend off the virus.
Asked what she would like to ask the US president, Ms Sturgeon said: “It’s not for me to tell Boris Johnson what he should ask Donald Trump.
“I think all of us, and I say this not just as a leader of a government, but as a citizen, I would like to see the President of the United States in his demeanour and public utterances around dealing with this virus be just a little bit more responsible in the message he’s giving. We laugh sometimes about previous comments about disinfectant and some of the comments he’s made certainly about testing.
“But it is so important that leaders – and we all make mistakes, we all get things wrong, all of us – but that we give clear advice and messages to people and we try to base that on the best knowledge, science and information.
“That’s a responsibility for leaders at the best of times, but it’s such an important responsibility at times like this.
“So maybe a bit of encouragement to think about the importance of that would not go amiss.”
On his previous statements around injecting disinfectant, Mr Trump later clarified he was making the comments “sarcastically”, telling journalists in the White House he wanted “to see what would happen” as a result of the question.