Trump trolls Biden's '120M' coronavirus death toll, Internet says former VP's speech still '10M times better'
Presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden stopped in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, to campaign for the 2020 elections on June 25, but it's his latest gaffe where he magnified the United States' coronavirus-related death toll that is making the rounds online. President Donald Trump also joined in on criticizing Biden, sharing a five-second clip that shows Biden saying that over 120 million people have died from Covid-19, writing, "If I ever said something so mortifyingly stupid, the Fake News Media would come down on me with a vengeance. This is beyond a normal mistake. Why isn't the media reporting it?"
While Biden appeared to immediately catch himself after his gaffe — the pool video of Biden’s comments cuts off after he made the remark and supporters of Trump were quick to jump on the former vice president's comment. Over 122,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the United States, which has the highest death toll across the world.
Many tweeted echoing Trump's statement, with Steve Guest, the GOP's Rapid Response Director, tweeting, "WHAT IS GOING ON WITH JOE BIDEN? Joe Biden just said, 'Now we have OVER 120 MILLION dead from Covid-19.'" A user tweeted, "Must have attended the Fake AF school of Fauci. I can’t wait to see @realDonaldTrump go toe to toe in a debate w/ sleep Joe!" Another wrote, "Joe Biden is not capable of anything at this point! It's elder abuse by the Democrats!"
Many pointed out an earlier gaffe when Biden said that "150 million people have been killed [by guns] since 2007" during the 10th and final early-voting state Democratic primary debate, held in South Carolina earlier this year. Biden's campaign later clarified that he had misspoken the information during the debate. A user tweeted, "Remember when Joe Biden said 150 million Americans died from gun violence last year? Now he says 120 million more died from Covid-19 this year. That's 270 million dead in two years: over 81% of the US population. Biden is senile."
However, others took to defending Biden. One user said about Biden, "His speech is 10 million times better and more appropriate than Trump's constant gibberish." Another wrote, "So hm Biden merely said 'million' instead of 'thousand'. Let me know when Biden is tweeting sh*t like 'Covfefe', asking if Finland is part of Russia, telling people to insert UV light, says 'oranges' instead of 'origins', calls Tim Cook 'Tim Apple', says windmills cause cancer."
One user tweeted about Trump, "Hey, you sentient dollop of racist tapioca! You have had your foot in your mouth so often you need to unlace your tonsils at night. Don' go throwing stones in a glass White House." Another wrote, "Joe Biden misspoke it; @realDonaldTrump mismanaged it. I’ll take the former over the latter. Nice try."
CNN reporter Marshall Cohen tweeted, "If Trump wants to make this a thing... Biden said, 'we have over 120 million dead from Covid.' He obviously meant 120,000. (The death toll is now ~126,000.) On Tuesday, Trump said, 'we're going to be at 115,000' dead. When he said that, the death toll had already passed 120,000."