YOUNGSTOWN — U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown said the nation couldn’t possibly have a worse president to lead than Donald Trump during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Maybe the two things that matter the most in an elected official is his experience and his character,” Brown, D-Cleveland, said in a Friday interview. Gov. Mike “DeWine has plenty of each and Trump has little of either.”

Trump’s “incompetence, his inability or unwillingness to have a real national strategy on protective equipment, no national strategy still on testing and on contact tracing and all the things that public health officials tell us we should be doing” shows his inability to lead, Brown said.

Brown praised the work being done by DeWine, a Republican he defeated in 2006 for a U.S. Senate seat, while saying Trump, also a Republican, has failed to provide leadership during the pandemic.

Some of his rhetoric has been dangerous, Brown said.

For example, Trump said Thursday: “I see the disinfectant that knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets inside the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs so it would be interesting to check that.”

That resulted in numerous health officials and the makers of Lysol urging people to not do that. After the criticism, Trump said Friday he “was asking a question sarcastically.”

Brown said when Trump “says that stuff he has enough strong followers, including some in your reading area, that do whatever he says and he has no concept of what leadership should be.”

Regarding Lysol’s warning, Brown said: “How many companies, after a president says something, goes public and says, ‘Please don’t use my products?’ Think about that one.”

Dan Luscheck, Trump’s Ohio campaign spokesman, said, “Sherrod Brown and his Democrat colleagues have made it clear that they are more concerned with political gamesmanship and attacks on President Trump than they are the American people. While President Trump delivers results, Democrats do nothing but stew over their next politically motivated attack.”

Brown compared Trump to “your crazy uncle at the Thanksgiving table that has no medical training and has all these ideas about what to do.”

Brown also said the Trump administration, more than any other presidential administration, “helps its friends and its buddies and its own family,” and “the president is taking care of his friend first even in a pandemic, which is morally reprehensible.”

Regarding DeWine’s plan to gradually reopen the state May 1 — the governor will provide details Monday — Brown said, “I think DeWine will move cautiously. … It’s not quite as easy as snap your fingers and the governor knows that. He’s thought about this.”

But DeWine is “under a lot of pressure from a lot of business people in Ohio, big businesses, who they themselves won’t be exposed to the coronavirus while many of their workers will. I might add that’s an important point to make. Some of these companies that want to reopen and deal with the public or a large number of employees, the leaders of those companies are not likely expose themselves to the coronavirus while a lot of their employees area.”

Brown said DeWine took aggressive action early and listened to medical professionals that resulted in fewer people getting COVID-19 and dying from the virus.

“I would make an equally strong assertion that more people have died and gotten sick and died because of the president,” he said.

During the various federal stimulus packages approved by Congress, Brown said Democrats are fighting for workers while Republicans are trying to help the wealthy.