Trump campaign calls Covid-19 illness his 'strength' as election nears, says Biden lacks 'firsthand experience'
President Donald Trump was hospitalized after being diagnosed with Covid-19 with the election campaign entering its final months. Trump's staff have now tried a new approach as a means to revive his flagging poll numbers and have indicated that catching the coronavirus is a sign of Trump's strength, while his rival and Democratic candidate Joe Biden is hiding from it, Fox News reported.
Trump campaign's director of communications, Errin Perrine, was asked whether Trump's diagnosis would cause him to "change his messaging" if and when he returns to campaigning, during an interview with Fox News. In response, Perrine said that Biden lacked "firsthand experience" with Covid-19. "Well, firsthand experience is always going to change how someone is going to relate to something that’s been happening. The president has coronavirus right now, he is battling it head-on as toughly as only President Trump can, and, listen, of course, that’s going to change the way that he, he, he speaks of it because it will be a firsthand experience," Perrine said.
"But, you know, that experience, that experience of not only coronavirus but of being president of the United States, that’s why you just see a different tone overall from him," Perrine added. She was asked why Trump had centered his campaign on issues such as "law and order" instead of the pandemic.
In response, Perrine said, "He has talked about it all. And listen, he has experience as commander in chief, he has experience as a businessman, he has experience — now — fighting the coronavirus as an individual. Those firsthand experiences, Joe Biden, he doesn’t have those."
However, Perrine is not the only one who has been trying to play Trump's illness as an asset. On Sunday, October 4, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, Jason Miller, did an interview with ABC News where he said that Biden had worn a face mask as a "prop". Miller shared, "This is a general-in-the-field-type moment that [Trump] couldn’t just stay upstairs, hidden in the Lincoln Bedroom or in the White House. He couldn’t stay hidden in his basement, saying, ‘I’m going to shut down forever." "I’d say that with regard to Joe Biden, I think too often he’s used the mask as a prop. But, also, we’ve seen with — with Joe Biden, I mean — we can’t all just stay in our basement for the rest of our lives. We have to get out there and live our lives and take this on, develop the vaccine, develop more therapeutics, and defeat it," Miller added.
We had earlier reported that Biden on Monday, October 5, lashed out at Trump and his family for failing to give the idea of wearing masks in public enough importance even after the president and many around him in the White House, including First Lady Melania Trump, tested positive for the deadly coronavirus. Biden had shared, "I would hope that the president having gone through what he went through, and I’m glad he seems to be coming along pretty well, would communicate the right lesson to the American people.” The veteran also wondered "what is this macho thing I’m not going to wear a mask". Biden also reiterated the importance of wearing masks during the presidential debate recently.