Democratic nominee Joe Biden blamed President Trump for the COVID-19 death toll Tuesday night, arguing that more than 200,000 people in the U.S. are dead because the president failed to take the virus seriously.

Biden drew attention to comments Trump made privately to veteran journalist Bob Woodward in February, only recently published, that he knew the coronavirus was “more deadly” than the flu, even though he said otherwise in public.

“It is what it is because you are who you are,” Biden said at the first presidential debate, referencing Trump’s response to a question about the COVID-19 death toll earlier this month when the president said: “They are dying. That's true. And you — it is what it is.”

“The president has no plan. He knew all the way back in February how serious this crisis was,” Biden said.

Trump said Tuesday the death toll would have been much higher if Biden were president because he would have left the country “wide open.”

The president frequently boasts about his decision to close the U.S. to most travel from China in January.

“You could never have done the job we’ve done,” Trump told Biden.

Biden then looked into the camera and asked: "How many of you got up this morning and had an empty chair at the table because someone died of COVID-19?”