Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Monday suggested President Trump bore some responsibility for his positive coronavirus test because of the way he has flouted public health guidelines for months.
“Anybody who contracts the virus by essentially saying masks don’t matter, social distancing doesn’t matter, I think, is responsible for what happens to them,” Mr. Biden said at a town hall hosted by NBC, when asked whether Mr. Trump shouldered some responsibility for contracting the coronavirus.
Last week Mr. Biden shared a debate stage with Mr. Trump in Cleveland, but said he was not fearful for his own health.
“I’ve been fastidious about the social distancing,” Mr. Biden said. “I’ve been fastidious about wearing a mask.” He said he and Mr. Trump maintained their distance, but acknowledged, “it was a little disconcerting to look out and see that his whole section, no one had masks on, when my wife was sitting further down, had a mask on, the people with us had masks on. I didn’t quite get that.”
He twice tested negative for the coronavirus on Friday, his campaign has said, and tested negative again on Sunday. His campaign has declined to say whether Mr. Biden is being tested daily, but have said he is being tested regularly, including before travel, as he did Monday to Florida.
President Trump on Monday night sought to reframe his battle with Covid-19 in political, rather than medical terms, suggesting that his recent diagnosis was not a mortal threat to his health or an indictment about his handling of the pandemic but instead an exhibition of presidential leadership.
“As your leader, I had to do that,” he said in a video posted online, appearing to suggest that exposing himself to the deadly virus by repeatedly ignoring warnings about mask-wearing and social distancing was simply part of his job as president.
Mr. Trump made the remarks in a video posted online shortly after his return to the White House after a worrying three-night stay at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. In the video, and another clip posted minutes earlier that showed his return home aboard the presidential helicopter, Mr. Trump said he “learned so much about coronavirus” but urged Americans “don’t let it dominate you, don’t be afraid of it” and boasted of the country’s having the “best medical equipment, the best medicines.”
The announcement that Mr. Trump would be returning to the White House was a dramatic turn of events from a day earlier, when his medical team had presented mixed messages about his condition, saying that the president was feeling well but also revealing that he had been prescribed a steroid that is typically not used unless someone is very sick with Covid-19.
Of his decision to risk contracting the virus through his own actions, Mr. Trump said in the video: “I knew there’s danger to it, but I had to do it. I stood out front. I led. Nobody that’s a leader would not do what I did.”
His comments were recorded on the same balcony where he stood and removed his mask on live television upon his return from Walter Reed, and only a few hours after he had tweeted that he would “be back on the Campaign Trail soon!!!” despite ongoing concern from his doctors about his condition and guidelines that most likely demand that he quarantine inside the White House well into next week.
“We’re going back to work,” Mr. Trump said confidently. “We’re going to be out front.”
The vaccines, he said, citing no evidence, “are coming momentarily.”
President Trump’s exhortation…
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