An energized Joe Biden and Barack Obama on Saturday accused Donald Trump of a massive screw-up in his handling of the coronavirus, but the US president remained ebullient despite trailing in polls with 10 days to go until the election.
Trump plowed through three campaign rallies in one day, targeting separate battleground states as he sought to close the gap with Biden.
But the president’s efforts have been inescapably overshadowed by a grim reality: the US set a daily record for new Covid-19 cases for the second day in a row on Saturday, at nearly 89,000, with a further surge expected as cold weather arrives.
The virus has claimed more than 224,000 American lives, with no end in sight, and a majority of voters say Trump has handled the crisis poorly.
“That’s Donald Trump’s presidency,” Biden said Saturday during a drive-in rally, one of two events in his native Pennsylvania, a critical swing state. He spoke from a stage decorated with bales of hay and Halloween pumpkins.
“Donald Trump said, and is still saying, we’re rounding the corner. It’s going away. We’re learning how to live with it.” Biden added: “We’re not learning how to live with it. You’re asking us to learn how to die with it and it’s wrong.”
The Biden campaign also deployed a key surrogate, former president Barack Obama, who slammed the Trump administration’s Covid-19 response.
Trump’s current grueling travels aim to repeat his 2016 feat. Earlier Saturday, Trump cast his own vote at a public library in Florida, telling reporters with a smile: “I voted for a guy named Trump.”
He thus became one of nearly 55 million Americans to cast early ballots in a year when the coronavirus has made in-person voting problematic.
Referring to earlier comments by Biden warning of a “dark winter” with Covid-19, Trump said he thought his rival was “very dark.” “They say you sound too optimistic,” he added of himself. “That’s right, because I love this country. We’re optimists… Our country next year will be greater than ever before.”❐
