Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic has been "erratic" just like his presidency, his Democratic challenger Joe Biden has said, terming the US president's leadership as "chaotic and divisive" that has cost Americans far too much.
The former vice president said Trump was playing games with people's lives and the only senior Donald Trump seems to care about is himself.
"His handling of this pandemic has been erratic just like his presidency. And it has prevented Florida seniors and people all across the country from getting the relief that they need, Biden said at a campaign event in Florida on Tuesday.
Florida is a battleground State which was won by Trump in the 2016 elections.
According to Real Clear Politics, which tracks major opinion polls, Biden is leading the state by 3.7 percentage points. However, Trump has been attracting thousands of people to his election rallies in Florida, despite coronavirus social distancing measures in place.
Biden claimed that Trump just hasn't been willing to do the work.
I think it's beyond that, I'm not sure he cares about delivering any real help. I think it's both. People say he's not willing to do the work. Well, I don't think he cares much about it, he said.
"While you're losing precious time with your loved one's, he's been stuck in a sand trap on one of his golf courses. When he does decide to lift a finger, it isn't to help you. It's to propose new tax cuts for billionaires. That's not hyperbole. 100 wealthiest billionaires in America are expected to get another USD 30 billion tax cut he's proposing, he said.
"We know what happened the last time a tax cut was passed when he came into office. Pharmaceutical companies got billions of dollars in tax breaks. Then they turned around and raised prices for medicines that you rely on to stay healthy. And they're still doing it even during the pandemic. Quite frankly, it's unconscionable, Biden said.
But Trump does not really care about lowering the healthcare cost because he's beholden to health insurance companies and the drug companies, he said.
"After all, he's asking the United States Supreme Court as I speak, he's asking right now to strike down the entire Affordable Care Act which would eliminate seniors' ability--everyone--most of you are on Medicare--but it would eliminate your ability--and that act we passed, Biden said.
"I was able help put in place, was that you'd have preventative services, and annual checkups and mammograms for free under Medicare. If it gets struck down, that gets wiped out as well," he said, adding that the rise in prescription drug prices for millions of seniors has put Medicare trust funds at risk.
Biden accused Trump of wanting to terminate the tax that finances Social Security.
All Trump knows how to do is play games with people's lives, he said, adding that the president turned his back on educators and school children, and on workers whose jobs have not come back.
"He thinks he's still on his game show, Biden said of Trump's different positions on the next stimulus package and attempts to give seniors a prescription drug discount before the election.
"Donald Trump's chaotic and divisive leadership has cost us far too much," he alleged.
Biden said he prayed for Trump's recovery when the president got COVID-19 but Trump has doubled down on misinformation."
He was talking about you. He was talking about your family, Biden said of Trump's comment that COVID "affects virtually nobody."
You're expendable. You're virtually nobody .That's how he sees you, he said.
Biden said the Trump campaign deliberately lied by putting Anthony Fauci in an ad in a way that implies Fauci was praising Trump.
"How many empty chairs are around the dining room table tonight because of his negligence? Biden said of Trump.
While the president throws super spreader events at the White House, how many of you haven't been able to see your grandchildren? he asked.
The only senior Trump cares about is senior Donald Trump, he said.
(Source: https://www.nationalheraldindia.com)
President Trump on Tuesday lamented his souring support among suburban women voters, begging them during a Pennsylvania rally to like him as he ramps up travel following his return to the campaign trail. In Florida, Democratic nominee Joe Biden made his most direct appeal yet to older voters.
Biden’s running mate, Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.), faced off against Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, as her confirmation hearing continues in Washington. Meanwhile, Vice President Pence made an appearance in Wisconsin.
With 21 days until the election …
- Biden, who for weeks has avoided saying whether he supports expanding the Supreme Court, said Monday that he is “not a fan” of the idea, which has gained steam in his party’s liberal wing.
- Barrett repeatedly said that neither the president nor anyone else in the White House urged her to rule one way or another on any specific case, including those that might concern the 2020 presidential election.
- An accidentally severed fiber-optic cable in Virginia effectively shut down most of the state’s online voter registration on its last day Tuesday, prompting voter advocates to file a lawsuit in federal court seeking an extension of the deadline.
- Early voting in Texas began Tuesday with crowds of excited voters waiting in line for several hours to cast their ballot in some places, even as new legal developments threatened to restrict options for voting ahead of Election Day.
- Biden leads Trump by 12 percentage points nationally, 54 percent to 42 percent, according to an average of national polls since Oct. 1. Biden’s margin is smaller in key states: eight points in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, seven in Michigan, and three in Arizona and Florida.
Trump lamented his souring support among suburban women voters, begging them during a Pennsylvania rally to like him.
“Suburban women, they should like me more than anybody here tonight because I ended deregulation that destroyed your neighborhood. I ended the regulation that brought crime to the suburbs,” Trump said, referring to an Obama-era anti-segregation rule that his administration ended.
“So can I ask you to do me a favor? Suburban women, will you please like me? I saved your d--- neighborhood,” the president said.
Trump said he’s heard that suburban women don’t like how he talks, but that he doesn’t have time to be nice.
“You know, I can do it, but I got to go quickly. We don’t have time,” Trump said. “They want me to be politically correct.”
Trump predicted that more suburban women, a crucial voting bloc especially in voter-rich suburbs around Philadelphia that tend to be a bellwether for the mood of the country, will vote for him than expected as happened four years ago when pundits predicted he wouldn’t get support from women.
“I said, ‘Why? Am I so bad?’ ” he said. “Then I got 52 percent. They said, ‘What the hell happened with the women?’ ”
Trump has cited that false statistic for years, using the percent of support he received from White women in 2016 to represent women overall.
(Source:https://www.washingtonpost.com)
The day after President Trump made his dramatic return from the hospital, taking off his mask in an “Evita”-style moment outside the White House residence before walking inside, the office of first lady Melania Trump, who was also sick with the coronavirus, released an incredibly detailed statement on the precautions it had taken since March to protect the members of the staff — the butlers, housekeepers, florists, chefs — working in the executive residence.
A coronavirus quarantine was an excuse for the first lady to lay low, as seems to be her preference, and shrug off appearances for a campaign that is faltering among women and could benefit from her relatively higher popularity than the president’s. And yet, here she was, calling attention to her contrast with her husband, even as they were literally stuck together under the same roof.
Before the pandemic, “distancing” in Washington simply meant rhetorically backing away from some politically toxic figure or behavior. During the covid-19 pandemic, the first lady has made efforts to signal that she takes public-health guidelines seriously even if her husband doesn’t.
(Source:https://www.washingtonpost.com)
President Donald Trump takes his Covid denial tour back to the campaign trail Monday as the tense final stretch of an election now three weeks away gets a fresh jolt with Senate hearings on his Supreme Court pick Amy Coney Barrett.
Trump, who announced Sunday, without providing evidence, that he has tested "totally negative" after his bout with the virus, plans to hold his first rally since his diagnosis was publicly disclosed, in Florida, in what risks turning into yet another super spreader event.
"I'm immune. So, the President is in very good shape to fight the battles," Trump said on Fox's "Sunday Morning Futures," in comments that misrepresented his own capacity to spread the virus if he is exposed to it again. A tweet along the same lines earned a warning from Twitter that the President was spreading misleading information about the virus. The President's proclamations about his own health followed another opaque memo from his physician, who cleared Trump to end isolation but who hasn't taken reporters' questions in a week.
Trump's Monday rally and subsequent events this week in Pennsylvania, Iowa and North Carolina will underscore both his increasing concern about his own prospects, as time to rescue his presidency runs out, and how his own infection with Covid-19 has done nothing to convince him to adopt a more responsible attitude toward the pandemic.
He heads to Florida after University of Minnesota infectious disease specialist Mike Osterholm warned Friday on CNN that the Sunshine State could soon be like a "house on fire" after dropping most precautions needed to quell the spread of the virus. The state added 5,000 new cases over the weekend. Trump's rallies are habitually packed and feature little mask wearing in violation of his own government's guidelines. At least nine people who attended a Trump rally in Minnesota last month have tested positive.
(Source:https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/12/)
MASSIVE Trump Rally at Orlando Sanford International Airport in Sanford, Florida #MAGA
President Trump has hosted a 'Great American Comeback' event in Sanford, FLMonday, October 12, 2020: President Donald J. Trump holds a campaign event at Orlando Sanford International Airport in Sanford, FLORIDA
Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. announced that President Donald J. Trump deliver remarks at a Make America Great Again event in Sanford, Florida on Monday, October 12th, 2020 at 7:00 PM EDT.
Florida Gov. DeSantis high-fiving at Trump rally draws criticism from doctors
https://twitter.com/DailyCaller/status/1315776119665287169
Members of the crowd at President Trump’s rally in Florida chant “CNN sucks” as @Acosta is live on air
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) October 12, 2020
pic.twitter.com/fdXTrt8MaG
https://twitter.com/_RichardHall/status/1315791071432118273
View of the crowd here in Sanford, Florida. Trump’s first rally since being infected with Covid-19. Crowd is not socially distanced and lots of people with no masks. pic.twitter.com/IRy81n5Cws
— Richard Hall (@_RichardHall) October 12, 2020
https://twitter.com/DailyCaller/status/1315869787709493248
President Trump dancing to the YMCA after his Florida rally tonight
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) October 13, 2020
pic.twitter.com/UKtKtWkqlS
https://twitter.com/Harlan/status/1315042905678061570
.@Mike_Pence Just drew 4000 people to a rally in Florida. Biden and Harris are pulling less that 10 people to their events. It’s a joke. pic.twitter.com/RokxRgNSuN
— HARLAN Z. HILL 🇺🇸 (@Harlan) October 10, 2020
https://twitter.com/dougmillsnyt/status/1315754211834028034
.@realDonaldTrump boards Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Md, for a campaign rally in Orlando, Florida. pic.twitter.com/PbKvSYoahf
— Doug Mills (@dougmillsnyt) October 12, 2020
https://twitter.com/DanScavino/status/1315750902855237633
President Trump on his way to Air Force One for a trip down to Sanford, Florida — for a massive MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN rally!!! #TrumpPence2020 #MAGA🇺🇸🦅
— Dan Scavino Jr.🇺🇸🦅 (@DanScavino) October 12, 2020
🌐https://t.co/zqgeZML9Hf pic.twitter.com/M6fOm6Lu2B
https://twitter.com/TheGoodLiars/status/1315629969855389696
BIG RALLY tonight is Florida. pic.twitter.com/EVipdaTPFG
— The Good Liars (@TheGoodLiars) October 12, 2020
https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1315732943084683270
The president is most likely still testing positive and yet is traveling to Florida — a state experiencing coronavirus spikes — to hold a political rally.
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) October 12, 2020
His contempt for the country only exceeds his contempt for his political base.
