Before the coronavirus pandemic led to record numbers of unemployed workers and shuttered businesses, the economy had been one of President Donald Trump's strongest assets, but Joe Biden's campaign plans to use its weakened numbers to attack him.
"No one thinks the economy is in a good place right now," a Democratic strategist who supports Biden told The Hill. "Trump got us here. And Biden can make the case that he's the one who can lead us out of here."
The campaign plans to argue, Trump not only handled the pandemic poorly, but is mishandling the economy, and it plans to Biden as the leader the country needs to recover.
To do this, Biden will lean on his record as vice president to President Barack Obama in 2009 as the nation recovered from the last major recession.
During an interview last Friday on CNBC, Biden talked about the economy, commenting the way to fix it is to first get the public health response correct.
He also slammed Trump, saying his "slowness is costing lives and costing jobs and costing our ability to rebound."
Kenneth Baer, a senior adviser in the Obama White House's Office of Management and Budget, said it will be "very important" for Biden to focus on the economy, but warned an economic rebound could boost Trump again, as the president will argue he is winning, even though the economy will be in bad shape.
Republicans, however, said it would be risky for Biden to focus on the economy.
"The economy will bounce back in [the third quarter] and by then many people may believe the American comeback is on the right course," Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak said.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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