New Biden ad claims 'Trump doesn't understand' that his coronavirus missteps 'destroyed' the economy

(Image credit: Screenshot/YouTube/Joe Biden for President)

published 12 May 2020

President Trump's Rose Garden coronavirus-testing celebration may have ended on an angry note but it started with grandiloquence. "In every generation, through every challenge and hardship and danger, America has risen to the task," Trump said. "We have met the moment and we have prevailed." He was making a case that testing was at a sufficient level to reopen the economy, even as the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 rose above 80,000.

Off-camera, "some of Trump's advisers described the president as glum and shell-shocked by his declining popularity," The Washington Post reported over the weekend. "In private conversations, he has struggled to process how his fortunes suddenly changed from believing he was on a glide path to re-election to realizing that he is losing to the likely Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden, in virtually every poll, including his own campaign's internal surveys. ... More than anything, three advisers said, Trump is focused on how to turn the economy around and reopen the country, seeing a nascent recovery as key to getting re-elected and his handling of the economy as one of his only strengths in the polls over Joe Biden."

Biden's campaign released an ad Monday night pummeling Trump on all these points, and also rebutting the Trump campaign's efforts to attack Biden on China. The long ad, "Timeline," curates some key moments from Trump's handling of the new coronavirus.

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"April turns into May," the narrator intones over dramatic strings. "The virus doesn't disappear. There is no miracle. The cases mount, the death toll grows, more than 33 million Americans lose their jobs to the pandemic. Unemployment reaches Great Depression–era levels. Donald Trump doesn't understand. We have an economic crisis because we have a public health crisis. And we have a public health crisis because he refused to act. Donald Trump didn't build a great economy. His failure to lead destroyed one." Watch below. Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.