US 2020 race: Trump has given up on controlling coronavirus: Biden

As Covid cases spike again, Joe Biden says Donald Trump is ‘waving a white flag’ on protecting Americans.

US President Donald Trump takes off his mask before speaking to media. His rival Joe Biden says comments Trump’s chief of staff reveal Trump has hung up his mask on controlling the coronavirus pandemic. Picture: Mandel Ngan/AFP

Joe Biden has accused Donald Trump of surrendering to the coronavirus after the president’s chief of staff admitted that the US is ‘not going to control the pandemic.’

The stark admission by Mark Meadows came despite Mr Trump telling his supporters the US is ‘rounding the turn’ on the virus even as infections have hit record new highs.

“We’re not going to control the pandemic … because it’s a contagious virus,” Mr Meadows said. “What we need to do is make sure we have the proper mitigation factors to make sure people don’t die.’

Mr Trump’s Democrat opponent, Mr Biden hit out at the comments, saying it showed the Trump administration had given up on protecting Americans.

“(Mark Meadows’) “stunningly admitted this morning that the administration has given up on even trying to control this pandemic, that they’ve given up on their basic duty to protect the American people,’ Mr Biden said. “This wasn’t a slip by Meadows, it was a candid acknowledgment of what President Trump’s strategy has clearly been from the beginning of this crisis: to wave the white flag of defeat and hope that by ignoring it, the virus would simply go away. It hasn’t, and it won’t,” Biden added.

Faced with another major spike in the virus, the president has increasingly sought to blame the media and Democrats for focusing too much on the issue.

“There’s no nation in the world that’s recovered like we’ve recovered,” Mr Trump told a rally in New Hampshire on Monday (AEDT).

“We are coming around, we’re rounding the turn, we have the vaccines, we have everything. Even without the vaccines, we’re rounding the turn,” Mr Trump told cheering supporters. “It’s going to be over. And you know who got it? I did. Can you believe it?”

The US recorded its second highest daily coronavirus infection rate of more than 78,000 cases on Monday (AEDT) after a new daily record of 83,000 cases in the previous day. More than 220,000 Americans have died.

A mask with a Trump 2020 logo is seen at a campaign rally for President Donald Trump in Nevada. Picture: Stephen Lam/Getty Images/AFP

Mr Trump said the left wing media in the US, like CNN were obsessed with covering the virus at the expense of other issues.

“Turn on television, ‘COVID-19, COVID-19, COVID-19, COVID-19, COVID-19, COVID-19.’ A plane goes down, 500 people dead, they don’t talk about it,” Trump said at a rally on the weekend “By the way, on November 4th, you won’t hear about it anymore. It’s true.”

The president has been pushing to reopen the economy saying it does more harm to people’s health to keep it closed. He has accused Mr Biden of wanting to shut down the economy saying such a move would produce another Great Depression in the US.

Mr Trump campaigned in New Hampshire and made a visit to an apple orchard in Maine on Monday before hosting a Halloween function at the White House.

On Monday, interviews with both Mr Trump and Mr Biden were aired on 60 Minutes. Most of the president’s interview was made public by his own team last week after he angrily accused correspondent Lesley Stahl of ‘bias, hatred and rudeness’ in her questions.

In Mr Biden’s interview, he ducked making any commitment of whether he would expand, or “pack”, the Supreme Court if he was president, saying only that he would establish a bipartisan commission of scholars to study overhauls of the court system.

“I will ask them to, over 180 days, come back to me with recommendations as to how to reform the court system because it’s getting out of whack,” Mr Biden said.

Mr Trump has accused Mr Biden of planning to ‘pack’ the court, a move which is supported by left wing Democrats but is opposed by the majority of Americans, including a majority of Democrats.

Mr Biden is leading Mr Trump by 8 points nationally, and by smaller amounts in the key swing states with just a week to go until the November 3 election.

Cameron Stewart is also US Contributor for Sky News Australia