President Joe Biden left for vacation earlier this week as the U.S. recorded the highest daily number of new coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic.
He concluded that there was “no federal solution” to the problem, and various spin doctors in the media urged Americans not to blame the president. But last year, on the campaign trail and as President-elect, Biden promised specifically and repeatedly that he would make sure the virus was under control.
Here are 11 examples:
March 5, 2020, Wilmington, Delaware: “We’ve got to look at the history of what’s happened, the recent history of what’s happened in other countries. We saw what it takes to get this under control, and we still don’t have all the answers. The bottom line is listen to the docs, listen to the researchers, listen to the infectious disease specialist.”
June 17, Darby, Pennsylvania: “The pandemic is still here. It’s going to be here for the foreseeable future until we get it under control or until we have safe and proven widely available vaccine. COVID-19 is a fact of nature. We have to deal with this virus and everything that comes with it. We have to deal with it head on, honestly, tell the people the truth. … I have laid out baseline steps of what needs to be done from make it work checklists for a successful accountable recovery that I put out back in early April to the steps for a strong reopening that I released last week. It’s not rocket science.”
August 21, Milwaukee, Wisconsin: “As president the first step I will take would be to get control of the virus that has ruined so many lives because I understand something this president hasn’t from the beginning, we will never get our economy back on track, we will never get our kids safely back in schools, we’ll never have our lives back until we deal with this virus.”
October 3, Wilmington, Delaware: “And as we’ve all seen too clearly this week, COVID-19 is still a threat to our health, as well as our economic security. We have to do so much more to step up to get this virus under control.”
October 23, Wilmington, Delaware: “And today I’m going to tell you exactly what I plan to do if I have the honor of being elected your next president. I’ll immediately put in place a national strategy that will position our country to finally get ahead of this virus and get back our lives.”
October 27, Warm Springs, Georgia: “For we will act, we will act on the first day of my presidency to get COVID under control. We’ll act to pass my economic plan that will finally reward work, not wealth in this country. We’ll act to pass my health care plan to provide affordable, accessible healthcare for every American, and drug prices that are dramatically lowered. We’ll act to pass the Biden climate plan, meeting the challenges of a climate crisis while creating millions of good paying, high paying, labor jobs. We’ll act to address systemic racism in our country, and we’ll act to give working people a fair shot again in this country. And we’ll act to restore our faith in democracy and our faith in one another.”
November 2, Cleveland, Ohio: “When I’m elected your president, I’m going to act, and I’m going to act on day one. Folks, we’re going to act to get this COVID under control.”
November 2, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: “If I’m elected president, we’re going to act, on day one we’re going to act to get COVID under control, on day one of my presidency I’ll put in action a plan that I’ve been talking about for months, masking, social distancing, testing, tracing, a plans for full and fair and free distribution of therapeutics and vaccines when we get one.”
November 9, Wilmington, Delaware: “As I said on Saturday, I’m humbled by the trust this country and the American people have placed in me and Vice President Elect Harris. And we’re ready to get to work, addressing the needs of the American people. Today our work begins. It starts with doing everything possible to get the COVID-19 under control so that we can reopen our businesses safely and sustainably, resume our lives and put this pandemic behind us.”
December 4, Wilmington, Delaware: “As we inherit the public health and economic crisis, we’re working on a plan that we’ll put forward for the next Congress to move fast to control the pandemic, to revive the economy, and to build back better than before. ”
December 8, Wilmington, Delaware: “But as all of you know, I know that out of our collective pain, we’re going to find a collective purpose to control the pandemic, to save lives and to heal as a nation. Today, I’m pleased to announce a team that is going to do just that. It’s a team of world-class experts at the top of their fields, crisis tested, defined by a deep sense of duty, honor and patriotism who are already ready to jump in. They’ve been advising me, many of them for a long time, and they’re going to be ready on day one to spare not a single effort to get this pandemic under control. So we can get back to work, get back to our lives, get back to our loved ones.”
Biden also repeatedly mocked then-President Donald Trump for claiming that he was getting the pandemic under control.
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). He is the author of the recent e-book, 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.
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