Joe Biden and President Trump talked on the phone about the coronavirus pandemic on Monday, ending days of posturing between the 2020 White House rivals.
A source familiar with the call confirmed to the Washington Examiner that the former vice president and Trump spoke on the phone on Monday.
“We had a really wonderful, warm conversation,” Trump said about the call in a press briefing later in the day. “He gave me his point of view, and I fully understood that. We just had a very friendly conversation. Lasted probably 15 minutes.” He added: “I appreciate his calling.”
The Biden campaign gave a similarly positive description of the call.
“Vice President Biden and President Trump had a good call,” deputy Biden campaign manager Kate Bedingfield said in a statement on Monday. “Biden shared several suggestions for actions the administration can take now to address the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and expressed his appreciation for the spirit of the American people in meeting the challenges facing the nation.”
Biden’s campaign offered to call Trump and give advice about handing the coronavirus pandemic after White House adviser Kellyanne Conway quipped in a Fox News interview last week that rather than criticizing Trump from the sidelines, the former vice president and likely Democratic presidential nominee could “call the White House today and offer some support.”
The Biden campaign immediately took Conway up on that offer, and Trump said in a press briefing that evening that he would take Biden’s call.
Despite Biden, 77, saying last week that his staff was working with Trump’s staff to set up a call, Trump indicated in a tweet Monday that he had not heard from Biden’s team about setting up the phone call that Biden offered last week.
“What ever happened to that phone call he told the Fake News he wanted to make to me?” Trump, 73, tweeted.
In response to the tweet, a Biden campaign source told the Washington Examiner Monday morning that the Biden team had not heard from the White House about setting up a call despite Trump saying last week he would take Biden’s call. The campaign planned to contact the White House on Monday, and the two candidates spoke on the phone on Monday.
Though unusual, presidential rivals have spoken on substantive issues and even met. In September 2008, with financial markets in free fall during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, Democratic nominee Barack Obama and Republican opponent John McCain came to the White House at the invitation of President George W. Bush. The outgoing president wanted both candidates to buy into a taxpayer-supported rescue plan.
And on July 24, 1964, Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater visited the White House to talk privately to his Democratic opponent, President Lyndon B. Johnson. The rivals agreed not to exploit race for campaign purposes, a sensitive issue nationally just weeks after Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, and amid riots in Harlem, New York, that flared that summer, a preview of massive urban unrest that would break out across many American cities a year later.
