Biden campaign lashes Trump for concealing Covid-19 dangers

The presidential contest took another acrimonious turn Thursday as Joe Biden’s campaign amplified its denunciations of President Donald Trump over revelations that he had knowingly minimized the risks of the coronavirus, and the Trump campaign tried to deflect blame back onto Biden.

A day after book excerpts and audio recordings showed that Trump had privately acknowledged to journalist Bob Woodward early this year that he knew of the virus’s danger but downplayed it anyway, Biden surrogates vigorously denounced the president’s response to the public health crisis, directly linking it to the loss of American lives.

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The Trump campaign, on the defensive for the second day over Trump’s faltering pandemic response, attempted to control the fallout from the Woodward book by striking back at Biden for what it claimed was the former vice president’s “behind the curve” handling of the virus.

The condemnations from the Biden campaign continued in the afternoon, when the vice-presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, also accused the president of recklessly endangering American lives.

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“He had all this information yet he held rallies, he suggested that to wear a mask is a sign of weakness as opposed to a sign of strength,’’ Harris said at an appearance in Florida. “This is the president of the United States. So we continue to have examples of the fact that this is an individual who is not concerned about the health and safety and well-being of the American people and is frankly engaged in a reckless disregard for the lives and health and well being of the people of our country. I find it so outrageous.”

In a memo to reporters, the Trump campaign pointed to the Biden campaign’s decision to hold an indoor rally in Michigan in early March — while ignoring that Trump had continued to hold rallies even as he was aware that the virus was deadly, and that he held an indoor rally in Oklahoma in June after more than 100,000 people had died in the United States.

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“While President Trump was already taking decisive action to protect the country in the early months, Biden was saying barely anything about the pandemic and continuing about his campaign as normal,” the Trump campaign said.