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Political News
Takeaways From The Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders Democratic Debate
The Debacle Over Trump’s
It wasn’t tea for two. It was- n’t landmines and firefights and all-out political warfare, either.
Rather Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders — the last two major Democratic presi- dential candidates standing — parsed their differences in an often-testy two-hour debate held in the shadow of the na- tion’s spreading coronavirus pandemic.
Here are six takeaways:
Coronavirus casts a shadow It was an elbow bump seen ‘round the world.
From the very first moment, it was clear the growing coron- avirus crisis would set the tone and top the evening’s agenda.
Biden and Sanders re- frained from the traditional pre-debate handshake, going for the safer flexed-arm touch, then retreated to podiums set a socially distanced 6 feet apart.
Book-ending the debate, questions pertaining to the global pandemic — both the health and economic repercus- sions — took up nearly 40 min- utes off the top, and both candidates came prepared to incorporate the crisis into their core messages.
The former vice president, who never misses a chance to tout his time in the Obama White House, distilled his message thusly: I’ve been here before and I know how to han- dle this.
“We should do what we did before with the Ebola crisis,” Biden said, recalling how he helped marshal the federal government’s response in 2014.
Sanders, meantime, mixed his consistent calls for over-
Former Vice President Joe Biden, left, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders greet each other before they participate in a Democratic presidential primary debate Sunday at CNN Studios in Washington.
President Trump an- nounced Saturday, after days of questions about whether he should get tested for the novel coronavirus, that he took a test Friday night and was awaiting results. The test was negative, according to the White House. If the episode says anything at all about the broader handling of the crisis, that would be very disconcerting.
Questions about whether Trump should take the test began after an attendee of the Conservative Political Action Conference last month tested positive. High-ranking Repub- licans who interacted with the person chose to self-quaran- tine. Trump interacted with a number of those who self- quarantined, including Rep. Douglas A. Collins (R-Ga.), Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and American Conservative Union head Matt Schlapp.
Trump also hosted an event at Mar-a-Lago recently where he was pictured with a Brazilian official who we later learned had the coronavirus. Two others who were at Mar-a- Lago have also been diag- nosed, including a Brazilian who sat at Trump’s table.
Trump’s potential expo- sure has been established for more than a week. Yet he shrugged off questions about
PRESIDENT TRUMP
whether he would take a test. The situation came to a head at Friday’s news conference, where Trump downplayed the need for him to get tested but said he would “most likely” get tested anyway. He clarified that it was not because of his
potential exposure.
The White House then on
Friday night released a letter in which Trump’s in-house doc- tor, Sean Conley, explained that the president did not need to get tested because he was not showing any symptoms. Conley said Trump’s inter- actions qualified as “LOW risk” and said “testing for Covid-19 is not currently indicated.”
hauls of the healthcare system with more immediate steps to blunt the effects of the virus.
“I obviously believe in ‘Medicare for all.’ I will fight for that as president,” the Ver- mont senator said. “But right now, in this emergency, I want every person in this country to understand that when you get sick, you go to the doctor... Do not worry about the cost right now, because we’re in the mid- dle of a national emergency.”
Biden agreed the country was in a time of grave peril — one that made so much of the remainder of the debate seem superfluous and largely be- sides the point.
No knockout blows
At one point there were more than two dozen Demo- cratic presidential hopefuls, many with the same strategy: Wait for the front-running Biden to implode, then surge to the nomination.
However, while Biden teetered and came close to top- pling, he proved remarkably resilient, going from foot-in- the-grave to front-runner in 72 hours, after a thumping victory
two weekends ago in the South Carolina primary.
That left Sanders in a fa- miliar place Sunday night: waiting for Biden — nobody’s idea of a champion debater — to collapse, so he could resus- citate his flagging campaign.
That didn’t happen. Sanders was the aggressor
throughout. He challenged Biden over his position on So- cial Security, claiming he re- peatedly sought to cut the program to balance the federal budget — which Biden denied — criticized his reliance on big- money donors and questioned his commitment to the fight against climate change.
Biden responded force- fully, raising his voice, jabbing a finger and occasionally as- suming a theatrical look of wide-eyed incredulity. But if there were times he fell back on his heels, Biden didn’t crumple or fold.
If anything, the frequent bickering over their decades- long political records made both look small at a time when the country has bigger things to worry about.
Coronavirus Test
Americans Believe Worst Is Yet To Come With Coronavirus: Poll
A majority of Americans said they believe the coronavirus outbreak in the U. S. will get worse and think that someone in their immediate family will become sick from the virus, a new poll released Sunday found.
Sixty percent of respondents said “the worst is yet to come” and 6 percent said the “worst is behind us,” while 31 percent believe the coronavirus is “not likely to be that major of a problem,” a national NBC
People wear masks in Times Square in an attempt to fend off COVID 19.
News/Wall Street Journal poll shows.
The survey also found that 53 percent said they were “very worried” or “somewhat wor- ried” that a family member would come down with the virus, while 47 percent said they were “not too worried” or “not at all worried.”
Forty-one percent of Amer- icans said the coronavirus will change their life in a “very major” or “fairly major” way, but 56 percent said it will only affect their lives in a “small way” or “in any way.”
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