WASHINGTON (BLOOMBERG) - President Donald Trump and his likely Democratic challenger Joe Biden spoke by telephone on Monday (April 6) about the coronavirus outbreak after the former vice-president offered to share with the White House his ideas for combating the pandemic.
Both sides offered positive initial readouts of the 15-minute conversation, with Trump calling it "really good" and Biden deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield describing it as a "good call".
"We had a really wonderful, warm conversation. It was a very nice conversation," Trump told reporters during his daily coronavirus briefing.
"He gave me his point of view and I fully understood that and we just had a very friendly conversation," the president said. "It was really good. It was really good. Really nice."
Bedingfield said that Biden used the call to share "several suggestions for actions the administration can take now to address the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and expressed his appreciation for the spirit of the American people in meeting the challenges facing the nation".
Biden's team had been waiting to see if the White House would reach out after the candidate and the president last week both indicated a willingness to speak. Trump asked Monday on Twitter, "What ever happened to that phone call he told the Fake News he wanted to make to me?" and Biden responded that he was "happy to discuss anytime".
White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway first proposed the call last week while saying that she'd heard only criticism from Biden about Trump's management of the crisis.
"Why doesn't Vice President Biden call the White House today and offer some support? He's in his bunker in Wilmington," Conway said on Fox News.
Biden's campaign quickly took her up on the offer and also pointed to advice he's offered in television appearances, livestreams and written documents on the administration's coronavirus response, including urging Trump to heed the direction of public health experts, to use his authority to push businesses to build more medical equipment, and to speak more frankly to the American people.
"If I see something that's not happening, I think it's my obligation to step up and say, 'This is what we should be doing,'" Biden said in a March 29 appearance on NBC's Meet the Press.
Biden has often said that while Trump didn't create the coronavirus crisis, he didn't react fast enough to the early threat and subsequent warnings from experts.
In late January, Biden wrote an opinion piece saying that Trump was "the worst possible person to lead our country through a global health challenge" and criticising the president's "shortsighted policies", including cuts in funding for global health programs and medical research.
For weeks, Biden has urged Trump to broadly invoke the Defence Production Act, so that US companies would be enlisted to build ventilators and make personal protective equipment. Biden applauded Trump for using the law in late March to direct General Motors to build ventilators and expanding that direction to other companies in early April but said that as first responders continue to say they didn't have enough masks, shields and gowns, the president needed to do more.
Biden has also voiced concern about how the Trump administration will manage the US$2 trillion (S$2.9 trillion) in stimulus money that Trump signed into law in late March. Biden has pointed to his own experience as President Barack Obama's point-person overseeing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as evidence that he understands just how difficult it will be to distribute the money to individuals and businesses.
