Joe Biden marked the grim milestone of 100,000 Americans dead due to the coronavirus by speaking about grief in a two-minute video he twee...
Joe Biden marked the grim milestone of 100,000 Americans dead due to the coronavirus by speaking about grief in a two-minute video he tweeted Wednesday evening.
The presumptive Democratic nominee took a swat at President Trump's administration's response to the pandemic, calling 100,000 dead a 'fateful milestone we should never have reached.'
The president stayed away from mentioning that the U.S. death toll had slipped into six-figures and instead quoted Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs Wednesday night saying Trump was 'arguably the greatest president in our history.'
Joe Biden marked the 100,000 Americans who died of the coronavirus Wednesday by tweeting a two-minute video he recorded in which he talked about grief and also hit the Trump administration for its response to the pandemic
President Trump didn't mention the 100,000 milestone as it passed by, though later tweeted a short video clip from Fox Business Network's Lou Dobbs that said he was 'arguably the greatest president in our history'
He continued to tweet pro-Trump Dobbs segments into Wednesday night.
Trump has shied away from the typical role of 'mourner-in-chief' despite his press secretary Kayleigh McEnany saying Tuesday that he takes that responsibility 'very seriously.'
'This is the hardest part of his presidency - going through this pandemic,' she told reporters in the briefing room, adding that he had friends who perished. 'It's real to him, it's personal to him.'
'So he does see his role as that - comforting the nation,' she added. 'But reopening the country, giving the country hope at this time,' she said, indicating that the president thought that was his job too.
Biden, who lost his oldest son Beau to cancer almost exactly five years ago in 2015, and then lost his first wife and daughter in a car accident in December 1972, told Americans mourning the dead, 'I think I know what you're feeling.'
'You feel like you're being sucked into a black hole in the middle of your chest,' the former vice president described.
'It's suffocating. Your heart is broken, there's nothing but a feeling of emptiness right now,' he continued.
He was often approached on the campaign trail by Americans who were grieving because of the high-profile nature of his family members' deaths.
He then talked about the specific pain of losing someone of COVID-19, as many Americans aren't able to be at their loved one's deathbeds, due to the coronavirus being extremely contagious.
'For most of you, you weren't able to be there when you lost your loving family member, your best friend,' Biden said. 'For most of you, you weren't able to be there when they died, alone.'
'With the pain, the anger the frustration, you'll wonder whether or not you'll be able to get anywhere from here,' he continued.
'It's made all the worse by knowing this is a fateful milestone we never should have reached, it could have been avoided,' Biden said, aiming his ire at Trump, who he'll be on the presidential ballot against in November.
He encouraged those feeling loss that it would get better with time.
'To all of you who are hurting so badly, I'm so sorry for your loss,' Biden said. 'I know there's nothing I can say or anything I can do to dull the sharpness of the pain you feel right now.'
'I can promise you from experience the day will come when the memory of your loved one will bring a smile to your lips before it brings a tear to your eyes,' the ex-veep said.
Biden further blamed Trump by bringing up a Columbia University study that said 36,000 lives could have been saved had the U.S. gone into lockdown a week earlier.
Trump said the study was politicized.
'Columbia is a liberal, disgraceful institution to write that because all the people that they cater to were months after me, they said we shouldn't close it,' the president said, referring to his late January partial travel ban from China that he credits with saving the lives of millions of Americans.
Biden concluded the short video by telling Americans that their fellow citizens were with them.
'This nations grieves with you, take some solace from that fact that we all grieve with you,' Biden said.
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