NZ Herald
  • Home
  • Latest news
  • Herald NOW
  • Video
  • New Zealand
  • Sport
  • World
  • Business
  • Entertainment
  • Podcasts
  • Quizzes
  • Opinion
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
  • Viva
  • Weather

Subscriptions

  • Herald Premium
  • Viva Premium
  • The Listener
  • BusinessDesk

Sections

  • Latest news
  • New Zealand
    • All New Zealand
    • Crime
    • Politics
    • Education
    • Open Justice
    • Scam Update
  • Herald NOW
  • On The Up
  • World
    • All World
    • Australia
    • Asia
    • UK
    • United States
    • Middle East
    • Europe
    • Pacific
  • Business
    • All Business
    • MarketsSharesCurrencyCommoditiesStock TakesCrypto
    • Markets with Madison
    • Media Insider
    • Business analysis
    • Personal financeKiwiSaverInterest ratesTaxInvestment
    • EconomyInflationGDPOfficial cash rateEmployment
    • Small business
    • Business reportsMood of the BoardroomProject AucklandSustainable business and financeCapital markets reportAgribusiness reportInfrastructure reportDynamic business
    • Deloitte Top 200 Awards
    • CompaniesAged CareAgribusinessAirlinesBanking and financeConstructionEnergyFreight and logisticsHealthcareManufacturingMedia and MarketingRetailTelecommunicationsTourism
  • Opinion
    • All Opinion
    • Analysis
    • Editorials
    • Business analysis
    • Premium opinion
    • Letters to the editor
  • Politics
  • Sport
    • All Sport
    • OlympicsParalympics
    • RugbySuper RugbyNPCAll BlacksBlack FernsRugby sevensSchool rugby
    • CricketBlack CapsWhite Ferns
    • Racing
    • NetballSilver Ferns
    • LeagueWarriorsNRL
    • FootballWellington PhoenixAuckland FCAll WhitesFootball FernsEnglish Premier League
    • GolfNZ Open
    • MotorsportFormula 1
    • Boxing
    • UFC
    • BasketballNBABreakersTall BlacksTall Ferns
    • Tennis
    • Cycling
    • Athletics
    • SailingAmerica's CupSailGP
    • Rowing
  • Lifestyle
    • All Lifestyle
    • Viva - Food, fashion & beauty
    • Society Insider
    • Royals
    • Sex & relationships
    • Food & drinkRecipesRecipe collectionsRestaurant reviewsRestaurant bookings
    • Health & wellbeing
    • Fashion & beauty
    • Pets & animals
    • The Selection - Shop the trendsShop fashionShop beautyShop entertainmentShop giftsShop home & living
    • Milford's Investing Place
  • Entertainment
    • All Entertainment
    • TV
    • MoviesMovie reviews
    • MusicMusic reviews
    • BooksBook reviews
    • Culture
    • ReviewsBook reviewsMovie reviewsMusic reviewsRestaurant reviews
  • Travel
    • All Travel
    • News
    • New ZealandNorthlandAucklandWellingtonCanterburyOtago / QueenstownNelson-TasmanBest NZ beaches
    • International travelAustraliaPacific IslandsEuropeUKUSAAfricaAsia
    • Rail holidays
    • Cruise holidays
    • Ski holidays
    • Luxury travel
    • Adventure travel
  • Kāhu Māori news
  • Environment
    • All Environment
    • Our Green Future
  • Talanoa Pacific news
  • Property
    • All Property
    • Property Insider
    • Interest rates tracker
    • Residential property listings
    • Commercial property listings
  • Health
  • Technology
    • All Technology
    • AI
    • Social media
  • Rural
    • All Rural
    • Dairy farming
    • Sheep & beef farming
    • Horticulture
    • Animal health
    • Rural business
    • Rural life
    • Rural technology
    • Opinion
    • Audio & podcasts
  • Weather forecasts
    • All Weather forecasts
    • Kaitaia
    • Whangārei
    • Dargaville
    • Auckland
    • Thames
    • Tauranga
    • Hamilton
    • Whakatāne
    • Rotorua
    • Tokoroa
    • Te Kuiti
    • Taumaranui
    • Taupō
    • Gisborne
    • New Plymouth
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Dannevirke
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Levin
    • Paraparaumu
    • Masterton
    • Wellington
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Blenheim
    • Westport
    • Reefton
    • Kaikōura
    • Greymouth
    • Hokitika
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
    • Wānaka
    • Oamaru
    • Queenstown
    • Dunedin
    • Gore
    • Invercargill
  • Meet the journalists
  • Promotions & competitions
  • OneRoof property listings
  • Driven car news

Puzzles & Quizzes

  • Puzzles
    • All Puzzles
    • Sudoku
    • Code Cracker
    • Crosswords
    • Cryptic crossword
    • Wordsearch
  • Quizzes
    • All Quizzes
    • Morning quiz
    • Afternoon quiz
    • Sports quiz

Regions

  • Northland
    • All Northland
    • Far North
    • Kaitaia
    • Kerikeri
    • Kaikohe
    • Bay of Islands
    • Whangarei
    • Dargaville
    • Kaipara
    • Mangawhai
  • Auckland
  • Waikato
    • All Waikato
    • Hamilton
    • Coromandel & Hauraki
    • Matamata & Piako
    • Cambridge
    • Te Awamutu
    • Tokoroa & South Waikato
    • Taupō & Tūrangi
  • Bay of Plenty
    • All Bay of Plenty
    • Katikati
    • Tauranga
    • Mount Maunganui
    • Pāpāmoa
    • Te Puke
    • Whakatāne
  • Rotorua
  • Hawke's Bay
    • All Hawke's Bay
    • Napier
    • Hastings
    • Havelock North
    • Central Hawke's Bay
    • Wairoa
  • Taranaki
    • All Taranaki
    • Stratford
    • New Plymouth
    • Hāwera
  • Manawatū - Whanganui
    • All Manawatū - Whanganui
    • Whanganui
    • Palmerston North
    • Manawatū
    • Tararua
    • Horowhenua
  • Wellington
    • All Wellington
    • Kapiti
    • Wairarapa
    • Upper Hutt
    • Lower Hutt
  • Nelson & Tasman
    • All Nelson & Tasman
    • Motueka
    • Nelson
    • Tasman
  • Marlborough
  • West Coast
  • Canterbury
    • All Canterbury
    • Kaikōura
    • Christchurch
    • Ashburton
    • Timaru
  • Otago
    • All Otago
    • Oamaru
    • Dunedin
    • Balclutha
    • Alexandra
    • Queenstown
    • Wanaka
  • Southland
    • All Southland
    • Invercargill
    • Gore
    • Stewart Island
  • Gisborne

Media

  • Video
    • All Video
    • NZ news video
    • Herald NOW
    • Business news video
    • Politics news video
    • Sport video
    • World news video
    • Lifestyle video
    • Entertainment video
    • Travel video
    • Markets with Madison
    • Kea Kids news
  • Podcasts
    • All Podcasts
    • The Front Page
    • On the Tiles
    • Ask me Anything
    • The Little Things
  • Cartoons
  • Photo galleries
  • Today's Paper - E-editions
  • Photo sales
  • Classifieds

NZME Network

  • Advertise with NZME
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • BusinessDesk
  • Newstalk ZB
  • Sunlive
  • ZM
  • The Hits
  • Coast
  • Radio Hauraki
  • The Alternative Commentary Collective
  • Gold
  • Flava
  • iHeart Radio
  • Hokonui
  • Radio Wanaka
  • iHeartCountry New Zealand
  • Restaurant Hub
  • NZME Events

SubscribeSign In
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Home / World

Covid-19 coronavirus: Biden says Trump shows 'no leadership' on pandemic response

By Will Weissert, Alexandra Jaffe
Other·
17 Jun, 2020 08:40 PM6 mins to read

Subscribe to listen

Access to Herald Premium articles require a Premium subscription. Subscribe now to listen.
Already a subscriber?  Sign in here

Listening to articles is free for open-access content—explore other articles or learn more about text-to-speech.
‌
Save

    Share this article

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice-President Joe Biden. Photo / AP

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice-President Joe Biden. Photo / AP

Joe Biden called on United States President Donald Trump to "wake up" to the damage being done by the coronavirus pandemic.

The former Vice-President's remarks today served as a scathing critique of the President's leadership of the country during the economic reopening under the virus.

"Donald Trump wants to style himself as a wartime president. Unlike any other wartime leader, he takes no responsibility, he exercises no leadership, now he has just flat surrendered the fight," Biden said at a recreation centre in Darby, Pennsylvania, a town in the Philadelphia suburbs.

At times pounding his podium for emphasis, Biden charged that the President is trying to declare the pandemic over and done with even as it continues to kill Americans and wreak havoc on the economy.

"Mr President, don't leave the American people to face this threat on their own, with no guidance, resources or leadership from the federal government."

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

He added, "Don't waste any more of our time."

“Americans need a President who will put the American people first, not his or her own ego. ... I’m ready on day one, after more than 3 years in office, why isn’t Donald Trump ready? Mr. President, wake up. Get to work. There’s so much more to be done,” fmr. VP Joe Biden says. pic.twitter.com/8NZGnZZzDh

— CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) June 17, 2020

While Biden has spent the better part of the last month ratcheting up his critique of Trump over everything from his response to George Floyd's killing by police to his handling of the economy, the 15-minute speech today marked his sharpest remarks yet on the President's handling of the virus outbreak.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee attacked Trump for the high rate of US deaths and charged that the economy is "still sputtering."

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

With "no clear guidance" from the federal government on how businesses should respond, Biden warned the economic outlook could get worse.

"We may lose some of the progress we've begun to make all because he's lost interest," Biden said.

A group of several prominent Republican operatives have launched a new super PAC, Right Side PAC, that aims to target anti-Trump Republicans and turn them out to vote for former Vice President Joe Biden. https://t.co/wbIuHgsEid

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) June 17, 2020

Earlier today, at a soul food restaurant and bar in the Philadelphia suburbs, Biden met a handful of small-business owners for a socially distanced listening session to hear how the coronavirus pandemic has affected their businesses.

Sitting 2m apart from each other around tables outdoors, the local business owners expressed concerns over a lack of guidance from the federal government on reopening.

Discover more

New Zealand

'Insecure and obsolete': Critical emergency radio system will fail by 2023

17 Jun 09:44 PM
World

'The virus will win': Why America is doomed to Covid second wave

18 Jun 07:17 AM

Scott Richardson, the owner of Occasionally Yours Cafe and catering company in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, said he cut his workforce from 12 employees to four amid the pandemic.

He told Biden that he voted for Trump in 2016, but now he says the president is more interested "in day trading" than long-range planning to combat the coronavirus.

Biden, in a hint of remarks to come, told the group that "no one" in the Trump Administration "is taking responsibility" during the outbreak.

If Bolton had done his duty and come forward earlier, there is a decent chance Republicans might have seen inevitable and replaced Trump with Pence. If so, odds are many more Americans would be alive and Pence wouldn’t be 14 points behind Biden. Character is destiny.

— stuart stevens (@stuartpstevens) June 17, 2020

Last week, Biden was in Philadelphia to unveil a multifaceted plan he said would gradually reopen the economy, increasing growth while not putting business owners or consumers at unnecessary risk.

The former Vice-President promised that, if elected, he would guarantee testing for the virus and protective equipment to guard against its spread for people called back to work.

He also wants to use federal funds to ensure paid leave for anyone who falls ill, or cares for those who do, and to create a national contact tracing workforce or "job corps" of at least 100,000 to call people who test positive, track down their contacts and get them into quarantine.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Biden further proposed a "safe shopper" programme meant to make returning consumers less wary of getting sick.

His campaign hasn't said how much all that would cost, however, and Biden himself even made a joking reference to being a "big-spending Democrat." But he countered, "If we don't do this, we're going to be in deep, deep, deeper trouble economically."

BIDEN: "It's not that Donald Trump doesn't recognize the importance of testing. It's that he's not up to the task or doesn't care... Just like he couldn't wish COVID-19 away in March, just like he couldn't tweet it away in April, he can't ignore it away in June."

— Ryan Struyk (@ryanstruyk) June 17, 2020

The former Vice-President says Trump has repeatedly prioritised the economy and the standing of financial markets over the nation's health, saying, "Trump has basically had a one-point plan: Open businesses."

Trump's re-election campaign argues that the Republican president issued "science-based" guidelines to jump-start the economy weeks before Biden did.

Since ending two-plus months of exclusively virtual campaigning from home amid the pandemic on Memorial Day, Biden has attended gatherings with small crowds a couple of times a week.

He's never strayed far from home, though, except when he headed to Houston to meet with the family of George Floyd — whose death in police custody in Minnesota has sparked weeks of protests around the country on racial inequities.

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

My deep dive into how the racial justice movement of the last three weeks is boosting candidates like @JamaalBowmanNY, @MondaireJones and @Booker4KY, and what it means for Biden in November: https://t.co/jdWcGl4iGs

— Charlotte Alter (@CharlotteAlter) June 17, 2020

Still, Pennsylvania is important because exceedingly narrow victories in the state as well as in Michigan and Wisconsin clinched the White House for Trump in 2016.

Biden's campaign has pledged to resume a normal campaign schedule that will take him around the country, but not before authorities and health officials deem it safe. Trump will be in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for his first major campaign rally in months this weekend — though he doesn't take questions from voters at such events.

Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for the President's re-election campaign, slammed Biden for preferring "campaigning from the comfort of his basement" rather than "travelling the country meeting voters and making the case for his candidacy."

"These events have been either tightly controlled or covered by press in a pool arrangement," Murtaugh wrote of the former Vice-President's recent stops.

"At what point will Biden subject himself to the scrutiny American voters deserve when considering the next President of the United States?"

- AP

Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.
Save

    Share this article

Latest from World

live
World

Israel vows to strike 'heart of Tehran' as Iran denies firing missile

24 Jun 08:01 AM
World

Rescuers race to reach tourist who fell into Indonesian volcano ravine

24 Jun 04:39 AM
World

Jeff Bezos moves Venice wedding after local protest threats

24 Jun 03:41 AM

Kaibosh gets a clean-energy boost in the fight against food waste

sponsored
Advertisement
Advertise with NZME.

Latest from World

Israel vows to strike 'heart of Tehran' as Iran denies firing missile
live

Israel vows to strike 'heart of Tehran' as Iran denies firing missile

24 Jun 08:01 AM

It comes after the US recently struck nuclear sites in Iran.

Rescuers race to reach tourist who fell into Indonesian volcano ravine

Rescuers race to reach tourist who fell into Indonesian volcano ravine

24 Jun 04:39 AM
Jeff Bezos moves Venice wedding after local protest threats

Jeff Bezos moves Venice wedding after local protest threats

24 Jun 03:41 AM
Premium
‘Pilots are very concerned’: The invisible threat that risks devastating air travel

‘Pilots are very concerned’: The invisible threat that risks devastating air travel

24 Jun 03:28 AM
Engage and explore one of the most remote places on Earth in comfort and style
sponsored

Engage and explore one of the most remote places on Earth in comfort and style

NZ Herald
  • About NZ Herald
  • Meet the journalists
  • Newsletters
  • Classifieds
  • Help & support
  • Contact us
  • House rules
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use
  • Competition terms & conditions
  • Our use of AI
Subscriber Services
  • NZ Herald e-editions
  • Daily puzzles & quizzes
  • Manage your digital subscription
  • Manage your print subscription
  • Subscribe to the NZ Herald newspaper
  • Subscribe to Herald Premium
  • Gift a subscription
  • Subscriber FAQs
  • Subscription terms & conditions
  • Promotions and subscriber benefits
NZME Network
  • The New Zealand Herald
  • The Northland Age
  • The Northern Advocate
  • Waikato Herald
  • Bay of Plenty Times
  • Rotorua Daily Post
  • Hawke's Bay Today
  • Whanganui Chronicle
  • Viva
  • NZ Listener
  • Newstalk ZB
  • BusinessDesk
  • OneRoof
  • Driven Car Guide
  • iHeart Radio
  • Restaurant Hub
NZME
  • About NZME
  • NZME careers
  • Advertise with NZME
  • Digital self-service advertising
  • Book your classified ad
  • Photo sales
  • NZME Events
  • © Copyright 2025 NZME Publishing Limited
TOP