By: Andrew de Koeyer| Editor
Biden has risen to the headlines this past weekend as he and his team have launched their latest round of campaign advertisements focusing on Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. The campaign has emerged from an extended media silence in full force with a plethora of advertisements accusing the president of ignoring early signs from the virus and failing to act upon them. These advertisements, funded by the Biden campaign and a handful of liberal super pacs, have mainly been targeting swing states’ audiences but have been rolled out nationwide. Their arguments aim to highlight the Trump administration’s ignorance during the early weeks of the pandemic as well as dissect and dissolve Trump’s defense for his decision making.
Among the criticisms presented in the advertisements include that of Trump’s refusal to send American public health officials to China early in the pandemic. In February the Biden campaign opposed and denounced Trump’s reliance on Chinese data and reporting, rather Biden called early to send in American public health officials to collect more accurate information on the virus and its potential. Additionally, these advertisements aim to dismantle the president’s argument and boast that he acted quickly to prevent Chinese travelers from entering the United States with a comprehensive travel ban. The advertisement correctly points to the fact that the United States allowed 40,000 Chinese travelers into after the implementation of the “travel ban” and that 40 other countries had imposed stricter travel bans before the Trump administration.
The strongest and most popular criticism of the president’s response labels a failure in the administration long before the eruption of the COVID-19 pandemic. In May of 2018, the Trump administration disbanded the White House Pandemic Response-team which was created under the Obama administration to swiftly deal with pandemics similar to what we are currently experiencing. When asked about the team’s dismantling, coronavirus task force member Dr. Anthony Fauci said, “It would be nice if the office was still there […] I would say we worked very well with that office.” This decision made early in the Trump presidency proved detrimental to the CDC’s ability to provide sufficient data as well as an effective plan to respond to the rapidly spreading virus.
The culmination of these statements help deliver Biden’s central argument that the President’s inadequate response lead to immense suffering and death that could have been minimized or prevented. The latest ad pushes this thesis that “Donald Trump left this country unprepared and unprotected for the worst public health and economic crisis in a lifetime.”
These latest commercials have been well received by those planning to vote in the upcoming presidential election. After viewing the set of advertisements, San Clemente High School senior Nicholas Francis said, “I found these to be very convincing and well done. They do a thorough job at picking apart the President’s lies and displaying his blatant failures to respond to the growing pandemic.”
As campaign season races on and coronavirus developments continue to unfold, voters can expect a flurry of new advertisements from both campaigns, with attacks now more personal and relentless than ever before.
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