Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the likely Democratic nominee against President Trump in this year’s general election, was asked a question during a virtual fund-raiser on Sunday that reflected a challenge looming over his campaign as the coronavirus outbreak intensifies.
“What I’m concerned about is that we see Donald Trump every day with this crisis giving his press report,” said one donor, according to a pool report from the fund-raiser, which was conducted by telephone. “And I would just love to see you more. Like, how do we get more of you and less of him on our airwaves?”
Mr. Biden has been taunted by online critics over his relatively low profile since the coronavirus forced him off the campaign trail, with Trump campaign officials and others needling him with the hashtag #WhereIsJoe. The former vice president has not made an appearance on camera in front of the public since he gave a brief live-streamed address from his home on Tuesday, when primaries were held in Florida, Illinois and Arizona.
At Sunday’s fund-raiser, Mr. Biden said that a recreation room in his home in Delaware had been turned into a television studio, and that he planned to give remarks on Monday. On a conference call with reporters on Friday, Mr. Biden said his campaign was working to increase his ability to speak to the public.
“I want to be in daily or at least, you know, significant contact with the American people and communicate what I would be doing, what I think we should be doing and how we should be doing it,” Mr. Biden said.
Mr. Biden’s campaign got off to a rocky start with its efforts at virtual campaigning, as a “virtual town hall” with Illinois voters this month was marred by technical problems.
At Sunday’s virtual fund-raiser, Mr. Biden addressed speculation about whether Mr. Trump would try to postpone the general election because of the coronavirus. (The president does not have that authority.)
“The idea of postponing the electoral process is just, seems to me, out of the question,” Mr. Biden said. “I know there’s a lot of rumors and speculation as to, ‘Is the other guy going to try to postpone the election in November?’ and all that. There’s no need to do that.”
Mr. Biden also indicated that he was giving serious thought to his potential future running mate, saying that he must “start that vetting process relatively soon, meaning in a matter of weeks.”
“There will be a group that is in excess of six or seven people that I look at, because those background checks matter,” said Mr. Biden, who has gone through the process himself. He expressed hope that “once I pick someone, God willing if I’m the nominee, that there’s not going to be any snafu.”
Mr. Biden’s remaining opponent in the primary race, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, has also shifted to campaigning virtually. Mr. Sanders held a live-streamed event on the coronavirus from Burlington, Vt., on Sunday, one of several such events he has done in recent days.
Since in-person campaigning came to a halt, Mr. Biden and his team have weighed in repeatedly about the coronavirus, sharply criticizing Mr. Trump’s handling of the crisis. But he has struggled to break through given the flood of news about the outbreak, and he lacks the kind of platform that is available to Mr. Trump, who has appeared daily at White House briefings on the virus.
Mr. Biden gave a speech about the coronavirus this month and released a plan for responding to the outbreak, and on Friday’s conference call with reporters, he urged the president to “stop saying false things.” But in the past week, he has been largely out of sight even as his campaign presses its case against Mr. Trump over his handling of the crisis.
Mr. Biden’s team has issued a number of written statements and has posted repeatedly on social media about the subject. His campaign released a video in which Ronald Klain, a former chief of staff to Mr. Biden who served as the Ebola response coordinator in the Obama White House, stands in front of a white board and discusses Mr. Trump’s handling of the virus and how Mr. Biden would respond. The video has now been seen four million times on Twitter.
Another video from the Biden campaign alternates between playing footage of Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden speaking about the coronavirus. “This moment calls for a president,” the video says at the end. “In November, you can elect one.”
A spokesman for the Trump campaign, Matt Wolking, on Sunday accused Mr. Biden of seeking to use the coronavirus for “political gain at the exact moment the country needs optimism and unity.”
“It’s also cowardly — because instead of showing his own face, Biden is having his advisers and allies do most of his dirty work for him,” he said.
Sydney Ember and Katie Glueck contributed reporting.
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Biden Addresses a Visibility Question: ‘How Do We Get More of You?’ - The New York Times
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