President Joe Biden has tried to avoid standing still with his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, as he provided a public outlet for Congress to quickly pass its massive coronavirus bill.
“I’m tired of talking about Donald Trump. I do not want to talk about him anymore,” Biden said Tuesday night during a CNN City Hall meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
“Trump has been in the news for four years,” Biden said at another point. “For the next four years, I want to make sure the news is the American people.”
Biden’s visit to Badger State, his first official trip as president, took place when House Democrats were ready to pass the $ 1.9 billion Covid aid package before the end of February.
The president, filled with questions from the small, socially distanced crowd of Republicans, Democrats and independents, offered a cautiously optimistic timeline for when he believes the US can return to normal.
” A year from now, I think there will be significantly fewer people at social distances, wearing a mask, but we do not know, ” Biden said, pointing out that they ‘promise nothing here’.
He also stressed the importance of reopening schools, an important political point amid the pandemic.
Biden responded to comments last week from press secretary Jen Psaki, who said the goal for the president’s first 100 days in office was to open most of the nursery school through the eighth schools at least one day a week. .
“No, that’s not true. That’s what was reported. That’s not true,” Biden said in City Hall. “The goal is five days a week.”
Biden, who has pushed Americans to be vaccinated, also said he believes teachers should move up “in the hierarchy” for vaccination priority.
When Biden felt compelled to discuss the handling of the previous administration’s pandemic, he was reluctant to name Trump by name.
“We inherited a circumstance,” Biden said, “where there were not many innings … [and] there was very little federal guidance “to help Americans figure out how to get vaccinated.
“Think of what we did not do” from the time Covid hit the U.S. shore, Biden said. “We wasted so much time.”
At one point, Biden referred to Trump as ‘the former guy’.
“The guy said, ‘Well, you know, we’re just going to open things up and that’s all we have to do. “We said no, you have to deal with the disease before you get the economy going,” Biden said.
“The fact is that the economy now needs to be tackled,” he said, stressing the need for increased unemployment insurance during the pandemic.
From his unified inaugural speech to his first week of executive action aimed at reversing policies of previous administration, Biden has made his desire to oust the nation from the Trump era palpable.
But City Hall comes just three days after the conclusion of Trump’s unprecedented second indictment. Trump has been acquitted over one article of inciting the deadly riot at the Capitol on January 6.
Biden, eager to restore Republican support for Covid’s relief efforts, hesitated when asked if he agreed with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, that the Republicans who vote to acquit Trump are ‘cowards’. .
“I’m not going to call names,” Biden said. “Look, I – Trump has been in the news for four years. For the next four years, I want to make sure the news is the American people.”
“I’m tired of talking about Trump,” he added amid applause from the socially distant audience.