Former President Barack Obama has come off the sidelines to join Joseph R. Biden’s empathy offensive against President Trump in the race for the White House.
The Biden campaign provided a preview Wednesday of a one-on-one “socially distanced” conversation between Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden in which the political duo talk about the coronavirus and the role the federal government has to play helping the nation rebound.
The clip from their discussion, which is set to be released in full Thursday, featured Mr. Biden criticizing what he considers as a lack of compassion on the part of Mr. Trump, as Mr. Obama heaps praise on his former right-hand man’s ability to connect with voters.
“One of the things that I have always known about you, Joe, it’s the reason why I wanted you to be my vice president … it all starts with being able to relate,” Mr. Obama said.
“If you can sit down with a family and see your own family in them … if you can connect to somebody else’s struggles then you are going to work hard for them,” the former president said.
The meeting marked the first time the two men have been in the same room since the coronavirus crisis began.
Mr. Biden and his allies are casting him as a decent man who can heal a nation that has become divided on Mr. Trump’s watch.
They’ve also sought to draw a contrast with what they see as the lack of empathy Mr. Trump has for people protesting against police brutality following George Floyd’s death and for Americans reeling from the coronavirus and the accompanying recession that has upended their lives.
“I don’t understand his inability to get a sense of what people are going through,” Mr. Biden said in the video clip. “He just can’t relate in any way.”
At an online campaign event later in the day, the former vice president took another swipe at Mr. Trump, calling him the first racist to be elected president.
“We’ve had racists, and they’ve existed that tried to get elected president,” Mr. Biden said. “He’s the first one that has.”
The Trump campaign fired back, with senior advser Katrina Pierson calling Mr. Biden’s remarks “really rich coming from a guy who proudly befriended segregationists.”
Mr. Trump later defended his racord on race to reporters at the White House.
“I’ve done more for Black Americans than anybody with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln, nobody has even been close,” Mr. Trump said.
The president cited his achievements on criminal justice reform, “something that Obama and Biden weren’t able to do.”
Still, the “Biden-feels-your-pain” messaging is resonating, according to a new ABC News/Washington Post poll. The survey found that Mr. Biden holds an 11-point edge when likely voters are asked whether Mr. Biden or Trump “better understands the problems of people like you.”
Mr. Biden often talks about how personal tragedies, like the deaths of his wife and daughter in a 1972 car crash taught him about loss.
When he rolled out his plan this week to invest $775 billion into caregiving and early childhood services, he mentioned the death of his son Beau, an Iraq War veteran who died of brain cancer in 2015 at the age of 46.
“Our entire family was there for our Beau when he died from cancer,” Mr. Biden said. “We know what so many of you are going through.”
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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