Key moments from Biden and Obama’s ‘socially distant’ chat on race, policing, COVID-19

Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama sat down for a socially distanced conversation this week, which was released on video on Thursday. They discussed the coronavirus pandemic, healthcare, and how it was “past time” to address racial bias in policing.

A teaser video of their conversation was released on Wednesday, criticizing President Trump’s response to COVID-19.

“Can you imagine standing up when you were president and saying ‘it’s not my responsibility. I take no responsibility.’ Literally. Literally,” Biden said in the teaser video.

“Those words didn’t come out of our mouths when we were in office,” Obama said.

“No. I don’t understand his inability to get a sense of what people are going through,” Biden said. “He can’t relate in any way.”

Trump responded to the video on Twitter on Thursday, writing that Obama was making a “commercial” for Biden.

“Obama, who wouldn’t even endorse Biden until everyone else was out of the primaries (and even then waited a long time!), is now making a commercial of support,” Trump wrote.

Here are key moments from Obama and Biden’s discussion.

Coronavirus pandemic

Obama and Biden discussed the coronavirus pandemic, with Obama saying that the U.S. isn’t dealing with it as “smartly” as other counties.

“You and I had experience dealing with health crises, public health crises, and in each instance what you and I understood, and why I have so much confidence that you’re going to be able to deal with COVID in the way that other countries with our kinds of resources are dealing with it right now, which is smartly — I have confidence you’re going to actually listen to the experts,” Obama told Biden.

“And you’re going to pay attention to the science, and you’re not going to quit on trying to actually bend down the curve of disease and transmission rates,” Obama said.

“When we left office, you had set up a pandemic office within the White House,” Biden said. “We had people from the CDC, 44 people, in China. We knew pandemic disease, this wasn’t going to be the only one that ever occurred.”

The Trump administration is planning on creating a new pandemic office after disbanding the National Security Council’s response office in 2018, CNN reported.

Trump said during a news conference on Tuesday that the virus will “just disappear” despite not presenting any evidence, according to NBC News. Trump has suggested the virus will disappear at least 20 times throughout the pandemic, including in February, when he predicted the coronavirus would vanish in a matter of weeks, according to The Washington Post.

Healthcare

The pair spoke about expanding the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration’s signature program that expanded healthcare coverage.

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court in June to strike down the ACA, which would end coverage for up to 23 million Americans, The New York Times reported.

“We understand during the financial crisis, you can’t separate out the public health crisis from the economy. If you want the economy growing again, people have to feel safe,” Obama said.

“What you did and what all great presidents do is not only lead, they persuade,” Biden said. “I think what you did with Obamacare, the ACA, and what you wanted to do, to have a public option. It’s the quickest, fastest way to get everyone covered.”

“I always used to say, the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare is like a starter house,” Obama said. “It’s the first house you get and it’s not the end of the process, it’s the beginning of the process.” He added: “It is hard to fathom anybody wanting to take away people’s health care in the middle of a major public health crisis.”

Racism and policing

Obama brought up the issues of racism in America and “how communities of color are policed, how, you know, police are interacting and, and oftentimes acting in ways that are racially biased.”

“And after the George Floyd tragedy, what we have seen is this extraordinary mobilization across the country of people of every walk of life, every race, every creed, who say we’re past time to do something about this,” Obama said. “We understand we’re not going to fix it all in one day, but we’re going to take this seriously and we’re going to start now.”

“Our response was not to ignore those problems,” Obama said. “And we arrived at a series of recommendations that are still pertinent to this day.”

“The point was that they know (police) need more guidance,” Biden said.

President Trump said on Wednesday that he’s planning on sending federal law enforcement to Chicago amid national protests against police brutality, The New York Times reported.

On being president

Biden touched on a “thesis” he had about being presidency and how that pertains to Trump.

“There’s two ways in which presidents motivate people,” Biden said. “By doing something really nobly, important and people go ‘Ohhh.’ Or to do something really bad. This guy has generated a sense out there, that people are waking up to, that he ran by deliberately dividing people from the moment he came down that escalator.

“I think people are now going, ‘I don’t want my kid growing up that way.’ ”

Obama said, “The thing I’ve got confidence in, Joe, is your heart and your character and the fact that you’re going to be able to reassemble the kind of government that cares about people and brings people together.”

This story was originally published July 23, 2020 at 3:54 PM with the headline "Key moments from Biden and Obama’s ‘socially distant’ chat on race, policing, COVID-19."