Biden, Sanders Use Coronavirus Response to Define Their Visions

(Bloomberg) -- In their first one-on-one debate, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders framed their responses to the coronavirus outbreak they way they’ve crafted their campaigns from the beginning -- one the steady hand of experience, the other a revolutionary wanting to reshape the country.

They sparred on ideological lines over how the government should contain the outbreak. Sanders called for an overhaul of the country’s economic and health care systems, arguing the virus has exposed the fundamental flaws in the problems in the country and implored Americans to push for Medicare for All.

Biden said the country needed to respond like it was at war, but he pushed back against a whole-scale restructuring of social programs. Medicare for All, he argued, could not be implemented and Americans needed real change immediately. Instead, he pitched a full-scale governmental response that he said would be capable of overseeing, drawing on his experience as the vice president and assisting in the containment of crises like the Ebola outbreak.

In a headline-grabbing moment, Biden also vowed that he would select a woman to be his running mate if he secures the nomination. Sanders said he would likely pick a woman, but he did not promise to.

But it was the global pandemic that dominated the debate, the first since Biden took a commanding lead in the race for the Democratic nomination. The debate began on mostly civil terms, as Biden and Sanders hardened their critiques of the Trump administration and what they described as a failed approach to handling the coronavirus outbreak.

For Sanders, the crisis has provided a perfect case study in the failings of America’s health-care system, which he argues can only be addressed with a complete overhaul. If the country had Medicare for All, he said, it would have eased the financial burden on people who lack health insurance.

“We are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee health care to all people,” Sanders said, as he underscored the importance of all individuals being able to seek medical treatment when they are sick.

Biden pushed back against the idea of Medicare for All as the solution, saying Italy has a similar system, and yet the virus has wreaked havoc on the country.

“You have a single payer system in Italy,” he said. “It doesn’t work there. It has nothing to do with Medicare for All. That would not solve the problem at all.”

Italy, with the oldest population in Europe, now has 1,809 deaths, an increase of 368 from Saturday, among more than 24,000 cases.

Although the candidates agreed the government should support individuals who lose their jobs because of the virus – Biden said there will need to be a “major, major, major bailout” in which “we do not reward corporations, we reward individuals who in fact are really put to the test” – they disagreed on the specific economic reforms.

Sanders argued the 2008 economic bailout, which Biden supported and he did not, should not be the template.

“Our job right now is to tell every working person in this country, no matter what your income is, you are not going to suffer as a result of this crisis of which you had no control,” he said.

But the somber tone of Sunday’s debate -- which came shortly after the Centers for Disease Control announced that people should not gather in groups of more than 50 for at least eight weeks -- soon gave way to bickering over their past records.

Sanders repeatedly attacked Biden over his record on Social Security, the Iraq war, his support from billionaires and his policy proposals on climate change. Biden shot back, criticizing Sanders’ record on gun control and his votes against the Brady Bill.

Both candidates said they would support whichever one won the nomination, but Sanders’s blistering attacks could hamper efforts at party unity, especially as Biden looks poised to lock up the nomination in the coming weeks.

Voters in Illinois, Ohio, Arizona and Florida will head to the polls on Tuesday, when Biden is expected to extend his all-but-insurmountable delegate lead.

Sanders has overtaken Biden with Latino voters, but Florida promises to be different, with its large population of Cuban- and Venezuelan-Americans who have a dim view of socialism. A recent poll showed that more than 71% of Florida Hispanics said they could not support a candidate described as a socialist. Sanders identifies as a democratic socialist.

Sanders was pressed on, but defended his past comments praising Cuba’s education system under Fidel Castro, remarks that were denounced by Democrats and Republicans.

“We condemn authoritarianism whether it’s in China, Russia, Cuba, anyplace else, but to simply say nothing ever done by any of those administrations had a positive impact on those people would I think be incorrect,” he said.

Despite Sanders’s narrow path to the nomination, he has signaled that he is staying in the race in part to push Biden to the left. So far, there are signs it is working. Earlier Sunday, Biden adopted a version of Sanders’s plan for tuition-free public college.

Still, on Sunday, the virus commanded the spotlight. Biden urged the Trump administration of to speed up testing and quickly build temporary hospitals.

“This is bigger than any one of us,” he said. This calls for a national rallying.”

Sanders agreed about the need for additional testing and hospital beds but also pointed to problems coming straight from President Donald Trump.

“The first thing we’ve got to do, whether or not I’m president, to shut this president up right now because he is undermining the doctors and the scientists who are trying to help the American people,” Sanders said. “It is unacceptable for him to be blabbering with unfactual information which is confusing the general public.”

Initially planned for a traditional format in front of a large studio audience in Phoenix, Arizona, Sunday’s debate was held in a CNN studio in Washington because of the coronavirus.

While officials in Tuesday’s contests are counting on absentee and early voting to keep turnout up in the first round of balloting since people began avoiding public places out of fear of the virus, a number of states have delayed their primaries.

Last week, Biden won four of the six primaries, coming out on top in Missouri, Mississippi, Idaho and the biggest prize of Michigan. Those votes were just a week after Super Tuesday, when he surged to front-runner status with sweeping support from African-American voters around the country.

To contact the reporters on this story: Jennifer Epstein in Washington at jepstein32@bloomberg.net;Tyler Pager in Washington at tpager1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Magan Crane

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