Joe Biden is walking a fine line as he underscores the fatal consequences of any missteps by President Trump and the administration while the country grapples with the coronavirus.
Biden, a two-term vice president and 36-year Delaware senator, is stuck on the sidelines as the White House tries to coordinate with the states to prepare for the brunt of the pandemic.
But while warning “Trump’s ego will cost lives” as the incumbent publicly clashes with Democratic governors, the presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee is sidestepping questions about whether he believes the man he’s seeking to replace in November has “blood” on his hands.
One of the emerging themes of Biden’s prospective general election campaign is that “he’ll be a better, more responsible, more statesmanlike president than Trump,” according to Rutgers University’s David Greenberg.
“It’s totally fair game to point out that Trump’s bad decisions and reckless leadership style, from foot-dragging to personal vindictiveness to encouraging bad behavior, have worsened this crisis. But Biden also has to win over swing voters,” he told the Washington Examiner.
If Biden looks “too angry or partisan” in his scrutiny of Trump, he risks alienating these key voters, Greenberg said. “So he has to make strong, unflinching criticisms while also finding the right words to come off as level-headed.”
Biden has adapted his third White House bid to quarantine life, canning rallies for virtual town halls, roundtables, happy hours, and press conferences broadcast from the basement of his Wilmington, Delaware, home. He says “over 20 million people” have tuned into his livestreams. He’s also debuted a newsletter and podcast to supplement a steady diet of national media appearances.
Meanwhile, Trump is anchoring daily COVID-19 media briefings from the Rose Garden and other White House locales, which he tweeted generated the same viewership as “Bachelor finale, Monday Night Football type numbers.” And the president’s reviews, more generally, have been positive. His approval ratings average 50.6% approval, 44.9% disapproval, according to RealClearPolitics data.
The University of Minnesota’s Eric Ostermeier said Biden was traversing a delicate balancing act. He can’t undermine the administration’s reaction, as Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel complains he’s doing, but he also can’t “disappear into the woodwork and cede the political stage entirely” to Trump.
For Ostermeier, Biden needed to embody “a more measured voice,” in part, because he’s positioned himself “as a practical moderate.”
“Critiquing the president with hyperbolic language feeds into the narrative that Biden tends to exaggerate,” he said.
Biden, shepherded by new campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon, is honing his overall message, as well as sharpening his tone toward Trump.
“I am issuing this challenge to the President: in the next 48 hours, direct the production and distribution of respirator masks, gloves, protective face shields and gowns to fill every supply request made by a governor to the federal government. Lives are at stake,” Biden tweeted late Sunday.
[Opinion: Biden slow to explain why he’d be quicker than Trump in tackling coronavirus]
I am issuing this challenge to the President: in the next 48 hours, direct the production and distribution of respirator masks, gloves, protective face shields and gowns to fill every supply request made by a governor to the federal government.
Lives are at stake.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) March 30, 2020
The “lives are at stake” warning followed the release of a charged video over the weekend, in which Biden asserted, “Trump’s ego will cost lives.” The video focuses on the president’s flap with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer over federal help with medical equipment procurement.
“His failure will cost lives. His downplaying will cost lives. His incompetence will cost lives. His ego will cost lives,” states text toward the end of the video, which has been viewed more than 7 million times.
Donald Trump’s ego will cost lives. pic.twitter.com/JNcGny13KO
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) March 28, 2020
Yet when prodded during an interview with NBC News’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Biden was reticent to repeat the rhetoric in person.
“Do you think there is blood on the president’s hands considering the slow response?” host Chuck Todd asked.
Biden replied, “I think that’s a little too harsh.”
Chuck Todd: “Do you think there is blood on the president’s hands considering the slow response?”
Biden: “I think that’s a little too harsh” pic.twitter.com/T0olK7Ctcu
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 29, 2020
Biden holds a narrow lead of 5.8 percentage points over Trump in national polls, according to RealClearPolitics.
The Obama administration alumnus, however, is still about 800 pledged delegates shy of clinching the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination outright, with 1,174 delegates to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’s 862 delegates. A total of 1,991 are required to become the party’s next standard-bearer.
