Joe Biden and Democrats are leaning in on health care messaging with less than 50 days to go until the election, reports CBS News associate producer Sarah Ewall-Wice.
This morning, Biden’s campaign unveiled two new ads as part of what his team said would be a $65 million ad buy this week across multiple platforms. The first ad “Little Brother” is airing on broadcast and digital in Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It focuses on a little boy named Beckett who was diagnosed with leukemia when he was two years old.
“If Donald Trump gets rid of our health care law, my son won’t be protected,” his mother’s voice says in the ad. “We would have to be making some tough decisions about what medications we could afford,” she continues.
The other ad, “Anthony,” is airing on broadcast and digital in Arizona, Florida and Nevada. The 30-second spot focuses on a boy who was born with a heart condition.
“I think that Joe Biden will be the person to protect Anthony and those with pre-existing conditions,” his father says.
The new ads are similar to the messaging by congressional candidates and what was a leading issue for Democrats when they took back the House in 2018. In a call Wednesday with reporters, DCCC Chairwoman Cheri Bustos called health care the “number one issue.”
Meanwhile, the president is also talking health care. “We are not going to hurt anything having to do with pre-existing conditions,” Mr. Trump said in response to a question at a town hall Tuesday night. But his administration is currently backing a lawsuit to dismantle Obamacare including those protections. The president went on to say he would have a health care plan protecting people with pre-existing conditions and insisted he has it “already.”
The president has been talking about health care a plan for more than a year and said in July he would be signing one within two weeks. So far, the plan has not materialized. On Wednesday, Mr. Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows said the plan is indeed ready, but it’s unclear exactly when it will roll out. According to Meadows, it’s more of an executive action with a “legislative component.”
FROM THE CANDIDATES
TRUMP-PENCE CAMPAIGN
President Trump repeatedly contradicted one of his top health officials Wednesday, telling reporters that Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield “made a mistake” when he told Congress a potential COVID-19 vaccine would not be widely available to the general public until at least mid-2021.
“I think he made a mistake when he said that. It’s just incorrect information,” the president told reporters during a White House briefing. “That is incorrect information.” Mr. Trump did not offer a specific timeline for distribution, saying only that the vaccine would be ready “very soon.”
Speaking at a Senate hearing Wednesday, Redfield also testified that wearing a mask is more guaranteed to protect someone from the coronavirus than receiving a vaccine. “We have clear scientific evidence they work, I might even go so far as to say that this face mask is more guaranteed to protect me against COVID than when I take a COVID vaccine, because the immunogenicity may be 70%,” Redfield said. “If I don’t get an immune response, the vaccine’s not going to protect me, this face mask will.”
President Trump rejected Redfield’s science-based conclusion. “It’s not more effective by any means than a vaccine,” the president said of mask-wearing. Breaking with public health officials who agree mask-wearing reduces spread of COVID-19, the president called wearing face coverings “a mixed bag.”
When asked by CBS News if Dr. Redfield stood by his comments after the president publicly contradicted him at today’s news conference, Redfield said in a statement, “I 100% believe in the importance of vaccines and the importance in particular of a COVID-19 vaccine. A COVID-19 vaccine is the thing that will get Americans back to normal everyday life. The…
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