Joe Biden is planning to hold regular “shadow briefings” starting next week to “show how he would handle the coronavirus crisis,” Politico reports.
Biden has already been weighing in on how he would handle the coronavirus, so these “shadow briefings” will likely play out the same way: Take things that Trump has already done, say he should these things, and then pretend he came up with the idea.
In a press conference last week, Joe Biden said Trump needed to get private labs and universities working to rapidly expand testing for coronavirus, which Trump had already done weeks prior. In the same press conference, Biden said small businesses needed relief from the economic impact of the coronavirus–which Trump had already called for the previous day. Biden also said insurance companies should waive copays for coronavirus testing, which Trump had already done. By the time Biden came up with the idea, Trump had already been getting commitments from providers to expand their coverage to include treatment for the coronavirus in their plans. Biden also said we needed to “accelerate” the development of a coronavirus vaccine. Trump had already fast-tracked the development of a vaccine back in January.
On Wednesday, President Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to help the private sector increase manufacturing and distribution of emergency medical supplies. Joe Biden must have thought it was a good idea, because right after Trump made the announcement, Biden blasted Trump’s “inaction” in response to the coronavirus, and implored him to invoke the Defense Production Act.
On Friday, Biden called on “every CEO in America to publicly commit now to not buying back their company’s stock over the course of the next year.” This came a day after Trump called for the exact same thing.
So is this going to be Biden’s thing? Hold regular “shadow briefings” by taking everything Trump does and pretending that Trump hasn’t done it already? This is how Biden thinks he can pretend to be presidential?
In addition to taking Trump’s actions and passing them off as his own ideas, Biden claims he’ll use his “shadow briefings” to address Trump’s “lies.”
Well, that’s cute. Between trying to take credit for actions Trump has already taken and spreading debunked lies like Trump called the coronavirus a hoax or that Trump refused coronavirus tests from the World Health Organization, he has no business claiming to have the upper hand on the truth.
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Matt Margolis is the author of Trumping Obama: How President Trump Saved Us From Barack Obama’s Legacy and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis
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