Biden stumbles over words after he loses track of teleprompter during coronavirus speech: 'I've spoken enough'
Former Vice President Joe Biden might have made a terrific comeback to the presidential race and is now the favorite to clinch the Democratic nomination to take on President Donald Trump in the November polls. But his response to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic has been less than convincing. Even his opponent in the primary race, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, has not done any better. The two veterans have, in fact, fallen behind New York Governor Andrew Cuomo whose fast response to the deadly virus both in his state and outside has fetched him high popularity points.
Biden, who had a tremendous March by winning the majority of the states on Super Tuesdays, was accused of not being visible enough in the wake of the outbreak that has claimed 582 lives in the US so far while affecting over 46,000.
Both Biden and Sanders went for virtual campaigning as a precautionary measure but the former’s plan failed to deliver. People even felt that the duo was trying to make political gains when humanity itself was at stake in the face of the disease that has killed over 16,000 worldwide.
Biden made things worse on March 23, when he committed a series of errors during a speech that was focused on coronavirus in Delaware, the state where he lives and had served as a senator between 1973 and 2009.
The former No.2 at the White House stumbled through a speech and even stopped abruptly at one point to change the topic. “We have to make sure that we are in a position that we are, well let me go to the second thing. I’ve spoken enough on that,” the 77-year-old said. Biden signaled to his staff making a circular motion with his right hand asking them to roll back the teleprompter
Biden also names Massachusetts governor's name wrongly
Biden, who was speaking from a home-based studio, spoke for less than 15 minutes and in that time, his speech saw a clear teleprompter issue that saw him getting mocked.
The veteran politician also goofed up by referring to Massachusetts’ Republican Governor Charlie Baker as “Charlie Parker” while praising the state governors for their disaster response.
“We could put politics aside and meet the moment like governors all across this nation are doing,” Biden said. “Governor Mike DeWine in Ohio, Governor Larry Hogan in Maryland, Governor Charlie Parker in Massachusetts, Gavin Newsom in California, Jay Inslee in Washington, hard hit, Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan.”
On March 20, Biden said he too has planned to begin his own daily news briefings about coronavirus from this week.
“I want to be in daily or least in significant contact with the American people and communicate what I would be doing, what I think we should be doing, and how we should be doing it,” he told the media in a conference call. “Hopefully by Monday we're going to be in a very different place in terms of the ability to be in communications with all of you.”
Also in the same speech, Biden praised Cuomo saying he has been “doing one hell of a job,” CNN political reporter Eric Bradner said.
Biden now leads the nomination race with 1,215 delegates while Sanders has 909. To clinch the nomination, a candidate has to win 1,991 delegates.