A day after Senator Bernie Sanders’s marketing campaign indicated that he would take part in a presidential debate subsequent month if one is held,
A day after Senator Bernie Sanders’s marketing campaign indicated that he would take part in a presidential debate subsequent month if one is held, Joseph R. Biden Jr. expressed impatience with the thought, saying that “we’ve had sufficient debates” and including that his focus was on combating the coronavirus disaster.
Mr. Biden, the previous vice chairman, has amassed a major delegate lead over Mr. Sanders, however has treaded rigorously across the topic of his rival’s future, aware of the dangers of alienating the senator’s supporters ought to Mr. Biden clinch the nomination. However on Tuesday, Mr. Sanders’s marketing campaign supplied the clearest sign but that the senator intends to maintain competing with Mr. Biden, when a spokesman confirmed his intention to look on the subsequent debate, if one happens.
“My focus is simply coping with this disaster proper now,” Mr. Biden stated on Wednesday, when requested if he needed one other debate subsequent month, and if he would take part. “I haven’t thought of any extra debates. I feel we’ve had sufficient debates. I feel we must always get on with this.”
Like Mr. Sanders, Mr. Biden has been compelled off the bodily marketing campaign path due to the coronavirus outbreak, and is grappling with new methods to attach with voters and break by way of within the information media. His feedback got here as a part of a wide-ranging set of remarks about partaking younger individuals and confronting the virus that he delivered to reporters and different viewers from his house studio in Wilmington, Del.
Mr. Biden continued to press his argument that President Trump has been too gradual in responding to the disaster, and he took situation with the president’s said need to reopen the country by Easter, on April 12. Mr. Biden warned against following “some arbitrary or symbolic timeline.”
“It would be a catastrophic thing to do for our people and for our economy if we sent people back to work just as we were beginning to see the impact of social distancing take hold, only to unleash a second spike in infections,” he said. “That would be far more devastating in the long run than implementing a thorough strategy.”
Polls show that the former vice president has been struggling to connect with young voters, an area of strength for Mr. Sanders. Before taking a handful of questions via a video conference with reporters, Mr. Biden aimed to empathize with the economic challenges facing younger Americans in this moment of national upheaval — and offered a reminder that they, too, are at risk.
“Every day we’re hearing heart-rending stories of deaths from people in their twenties and their thirties,” he said, urging adherence to public safety guidelines about social distancing. “But here’s what we must not do. We must not allow this pandemic to rob our young people of the futures and the economic opportunities that they’ve been working so hard to build.”
The nation, he said, is facing “twin crises.”
“The public health crisis is hitting older Americans especially hard,” he said. “The economic crisis is hitting younger people. All those hard-working young people in service industries, and in retail, that are being decimated by layoffs. All those who are hustling to make a living in the gig economy. They deserve the same benefits as everyone else does. We have to make sure they get them.”
Mr. Sanders has also been holding live stream events to talk about the threat from the virus and make the case that his policies on health care and income inequality have become more relevant amid a national health crisis. And as a sitting senator from Vermont, he is part of the Senate’s effort to pass an economic stabilization package.
When the virus put a halt to in-person campaigning, Mr. Biden faded somewhat from public view. But his campaign has now installed a makeshift television studio in his house, and he has made use of the studio several times in the past few days, including for appearances on CNN, MSNBC and ABC’s “The View.”
Still, Mr. Biden, who served for 36 years in the Senate, acknowledged the limitations of being confined to his house as a private citizen — albeit one who is likely to become a major party presidential nominee — as lawmakers scramble to respond to the crisis.
“I have to tell you, I find, I guess like anybody who cares about this, I’m chomping at the bit,” he said. “I wish I were still in the Senate, you know, being able to impact on some of these things. But I am where I am. And I hope to be the nominee of the Democratic Party, and I hope I’m able to get my message across as we go forward.”