While leaders across the country are urging Americans to stay in their homes to stop the spread of the coronavirus, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway is openly mocking former Vice President Joe Biden for setting that example.
“Why doesn’t Vice President Biden call the White House today and offer some support? He’s in his bunker in Wilmington,” Conway said Wednesday morning on Fox & Friends. In her next breath she added, “I have to tell you, we’re not talking about politics here at the White House at all. We’re talking about ventilators and vaccines, not Biden and Bernie.”
And yet Conway continued to attack Biden for criticizing President Donald Trump’s response to the crisis from inside his home later in the day.
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During a press gaggle outside the White House, Conway called it “completely unhelpful” to have the former vice president “in his bunker in Wilmington just lobbing criticisms” at the current president. She called Biden’s interviews “painful to watch” before adding, “He’s got a lot of fans out there that can’t get enough of Joe Biden in the bunker in Delaware.”
At that point, a reporter asked her, “When you say he’s ‘in his bunker,’ are you suggesting Vice President Biden should be disregarding federal guidelines and be out there mixing with people?”
“You know I’m not,” Conway shot back. “Let’s not be silly. Let’s not be silly about it.” When the reporter said she just wanted to know what Conway was “implying” with her repetition of the “bunker” line, she replied, “I’m not implying anything. In fact, I’m not implying a single thing. I wonder what you’re implying.”
“I’m not implying anything,” she added again later. “He can stay in the bunker all he wants. He can cough into or sneeze into his hand all he wants. He can read from prepared notes all he wants. I’m yet to hear a single idea from Vice President Biden that would be helpful to the American people or is different from what we’re doing.”
In a statement responding to Conway, Biden deputy communications director Kate Bedingfield said, “Vice President Biden has been extending his advice for months, and he did so again on the air last night.”
But as the presumptive 2020 nominee told MSNBC on Tuesday night, “I don’t get a sense that the president wants to hear from anybody. It’s all about, like, asking governors to thank him for what he’s doing as president.”
Biden has repeatedly stated that he does not believe the coronavirus pandemic is Trump’s “fault” but has pointed out that his lack of speed in trying to contain it within the United States has made the situation far worse than it needed to be.
One of his biggest suggestions has been to let the medical experts handle the daily briefings and take the microphone away from the president.
