Brad Polumbo of the Washington Examiner revisits candidate Joe Biden’s campaign promises about COVID-19.
It’s not exactly shocking when a politician’s campaign promises don’t materialize after they take office. But when it comes to something as serious as the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s certainly fair to hold our elected officials to their word — and when we apply that to President Joe Biden, his COVID campaign promises have aged terribly.
Running against then-President Donald Trump, Biden didn’t hesitate to blame the president directly for the state of the pandemic. During an October 2020 debate, Biden referenced the 220,000 Americans who had died of COVID-19 at that time and blamed Trump personally for those deaths.
“If you hear nothing else I say tonight, hear this,” Biden said. “Anyone that is responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of America.”
“I will take care of this,” he promised. “I will end this. I’m going to shut down the virus, not the country.”
For the sake of our country, I really do wish that Biden had been able to follow through on these promises. But any honest appraisal of reality reveals that the president has failed on all counts.
Roughly 366,470 Americans have died of COVID-19 since Biden’s inauguration, according to the Washington Free Beacon. More Americans have now died of COVID-19 in 2021— a year in which Biden has been president, except for the first few weeks — than in 2020 under Trump.
What happened to “shutting down the virus,” Joe?
These tragic results come despite the president’s grand campaign promises and despite the fact that the United States has had exponentially expanded access to vaccines and treatments during Biden’s presidency.
Holding Biden to his own words, he has failed — woefully. And if Trump was responsible for the deaths in 2020 and thus disqualified to occupy the Oval Office, well, under Biden’s own logic, he is just as culpable.
