Joe Biden ‘offers to call Trump to team up to fight coronavirus pandemic’ – The Sun

JOE Biden has reportedly offered to call the president to offer advice on how to tackle the coronavirus epidemic.

Recent weeks have seen the Democratic frontrunner and former vice president speak repeatedly about the crisis during interviews and virtual rallies.

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His offer follows an interview given by presidential counsellor Kellyanne Conway yesterday in which she said he should "call the White House today and offer some support".

The president is facing mounting criticism over the his administration's handling of the epidemic and his earlier attempts to play down its severity.

Speaking to Fox News, Kate Bedingfield, Biden's deputy campaign manager, said: "Vice President Biden has been extending his advice for months, and he did so again on the air last night.

"As he has said repeatedly, Donald Trump is not accountable for coronavirus itself – but he is accountable for the federal government's slow and chaotic response."

"Unfortunately, Trump spent months after the virus was discovered disregarding repeated warnings from his scientific and intelligence experts, and downplaying the threat of this outbreak to the American people."

Biden's time as vice president to President Obama saw a number of major pandemics, including the 2009 global swine flu outbreak and the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

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Bedingfield added: "The Obama-Biden administration even wrote a literal playbook for pandemic response, but unfortunately Trump's administration left it on the shelf.

"Now we have more coronavirus cases than any other country."

She also said Trump should have heeded a warning from Biden that claims by the Chinese government in the early stages of the pandemic about the extent of the spread and their efforts to slow it could not be trusted.

Asked at a White House press conference on Wednesday whether he would take Biden's call, Trump said: "Oh, sure. Absolutely.

"I'd love to speak with him. I always found him to be a nice guy."

Biden is currently the favourite in the race to be the Democratic nomination to face Trump in November's election.

He and rival Bernie Sanders cancelled numerous rallies last month after the number of coronavirus cases in the US began to grow and new social distancing measures were introduced.

They continue to conduct media interviews remotely and hold rallies and Q&A sessions online.

Each of Biden, Sanders, and Trump are in the age group known to be most vulnerable to the virus.

The coronavirus has infected more than 215,000 people in the US and over 950,000 worldwide since breaking out in December.