Joe Biden’s Holiday Message on Coronavirus: ‘Our Darkest Days … Are Ahead of Us’

President-elect Joe Biden offered a bleak, pessimistic holiday message during a press briefing on Tuesday, telling Americans that the worst is yet to come in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

Reading from prepared remarks, at a briefing that was billed as a message to the American people for the holidays, Biden said:

One thing I promise you, about my leadership during this crisis: I’m going tell it to you straight. I’m going tell you the truth, and here is the simple truth. Our darkest days in the battle against COVID are ahead of us, not behind us. So we need to prepare ourselves, to steel our spines, as frustrating as it is to hear. It’s going to take patience, persistence,  and determination to beat this virus.

Biden’s tone was a marked change from that of President Donald Trump, who has told Americans since the spring that the country is about to turn the corner in its fight against the disease.

The president-elect did not seem to think that the rollout of vaccines, the passage of coronavirus relief legislation, and the rapid pace of economic growth were good signs. He seemed determined to set expectations low — and to make the case for renewed stimulus spending when he takes office in January.

Peter Doocy of Fox News was not chosen to ask a question, but received a bizarre response when he shouted a question about whether the president-elect still thought the Hunter Biden story was “Russian disinformation”:

Fox's Peter Doocy asks Biden if he still believes that "the stories from the fall about your son Hunter were Russian disinformation and a smear campaign."

After first mocking Doocy as a "one-horse pony" and saying "God love you," Biden replies "yes, yes, and yes" pic.twitter.com/R9l3yiYq5X

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) December 22, 2020

Biden also defended his failure to name a nominee for the position of Attorney General, saying it took time to put a good team together, but that his eventual choice would respect the independence of the Department of Justice.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His newest e-book is Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.