The campaigns of President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden illustrate the seriousness — or lack of seriousness — that the candidates and their respective political parties attach to the global coronavirus pandemic.
Biden campaigned Monday in Manitowoc, where he slammed President Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. “Trump panicked. The virus was too big for him. All his life Donald Trump has been bailed out of any crisis he faced. And with this crisis, a real crisis, a crisis that required real presidential leadership, he just wasn’t up to it.”
Biden wore a mask at during his remarks at Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry — and criticized Trump for holding large campaign rallies as cases spike around the country. His appearance came on the same day that a former aide to Vice President Mike Pence and member of the White Coronavirus Task Force said Trump claimed COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t wasn’t all bad.
“Now we know what he really thinks of the people who come to his rallies,” Biden said. “The former employee said he calls his own supporters ‘disgusting.’ He said one of the benefits of this pandemic is he doesn’t have to shake their hands.”
During another campaign rally Monday night in Swanton, Ohio, President Trump a crowd of mostly maskless supporters that the pandemic is mainly killing older Americans and those with preexisting conditions.
“It affects elderly people. Elderly people with heart problems and other problems,” Trump said. “If they have other problems, that’s what it really affects. That’s it.” By Tuesday morning, the virus had killed more than 200,000 America
Biden said Monday that the latest COVID-19 pandemic modeling paints a grim picture. “Between now and the end of the year, we’re going to lose up to 200,000 additional lives,” Biden said. “If we act by doing what you’re doing here in Wisconsin, wearing masks and making minimum requirements to meet this, we can save over a 115,000 of those lives.”