Joe Biden offered a confusing response when asked about President Trump’s management of the coronavirus pandemic’s public health and economic fallout.
Biden, during a rare national TV interview amid the outbreak, was pressed Tuesday about Trump’s insistence he didn’t want the economic downturn caused by business closures, forced by White House and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention social distancing recommendations, to “be worse” than health issues stemming from COVID-19 itself.
“Are you at all concerned, as President Trump said, we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself?” ABC’s The View host Sara Haines asked the two-term vice president.
The presumptive 2020 Democratic presidential nominee and 36-year Delaware senator replied, “We have to take care of the cure. That will make the problem worse, no matter what. No matter what. We know what has to be done.”
“Are you at all concerned, as President Trump said, we cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself?”
“We have to take care of the cure that will make the problem worse no matter what”
Um, what? pic.twitter.com/VylTvzO3Tw
— Elizabeth Harrington (@LizRNC) March 24, 2020
Biden reiterated during the spot that the priority was stopping the spread of the novel respiratory illness and flattening “that curve.”
“I don’t agree with the notion that somehow it’s okay to let the — let people die, and I’m not sure that would happen, I heard earlier comments on your show — to make sure the economy is there for our kids,” he said. “We have the strongest, most vital, most vibrant economy in the world. We can bounce back, but we need workers to bounce back. We need small businesses to bounce back. We need people being able to take care of their immediate needs.”
Biden’s appearance marks a change in campaign tactics from his team as he struggles to remain politically relevant to the national discussion amid the coronavirus crisis.
On Monday, he hosted his first “shadow briefing,” counter-programming to Trump’s daily White House press conferences. But Tuesday’s interview, taped from his home in Delaware, was cut short in some media markets due to press availabilities with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser.
