Biden ‘wasn’t surprised’ Trump got coronavirus

Democratic presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden said Monday he was not surprised President Trump contracted the coronavirus.

Mr. Biden blasted Mr. Trump’s approach to the coronavirus fewer than two hours after the president returned to the White House after his hospitalization at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center because of the coronavirus.

“You have built your campaign around the coronavirus, has been your number one issue — so when you hear that this president was infected with COVID-19, were you surprised?” asked NBC personality Lester Holt at a town hall in Miami, Florida.

“Quite frankly, I wasn’t surprised,” Mr. Biden answered. “I, look, every, for the last three months, three times a week I’m on the telephone and on Zoom with some of the leading immunologists in the nation and they go through everything that’s happening and so the idea that COVID does not spread in proximity when you don’t have a mask on, when you’re not socially distancing, when there’s large groups of people, when you’re inside particularly but even when you’re outside. That’s not surprising.”

Mr. Biden continued to say people are neglecting to acknowledge the number of coronavirus-attributed deaths in the United States, which he described as “205 to 210,000” people have died already. Earlier in the town hall, Mr. Biden said 210 million people had died before correcting himself and citing 210,000 dead instead.

Mr. Biden then suggested Mr. Trump was responsible for his becoming infected with the coronavirus.

“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.

The evening town hall in Miami, Florida, presented a late day for Mr. Biden, who spent the afternoon at the Little Haiti Cultural Center, where he urged Haitian Americans to register to vote as the final deadline to do so before the November election approaches.