CNN’s White House correspondent John Harwood said Friday on “New Day” that President Joe Biden’s speech on the coronavirus pandemic conveyed empathy which “all Americans have been missing” in their president.
Harwood said, “I think a spiking the football is the last thing that President Biden wanted to do. What was notable about the speech was the appeal to universal values. It was striking in the way that the president conveys empathy in unadorned language, trying to appeal to the common experiences that all Americans have been missing during this pandemic. Appealing to them for assistance.”
He added, “We have had four years of a president who recently departed who was saying to the American people, you need me. Joe Biden was saying I need you. He was also saying I need science. I need the business community to continue ramping up these vaccines. I need state and local governments to push these vaccines out, and I’m backing them up with a rushing river of money from the American Rescue Plan. And most of all, I need Americans to mask up and do the things, the public health guidelines that will enable us to achieve those goals by the Fourth of July. This is a president who has consistently underpromised and over-delivered. You can bet that they’re confident that they can achieve these goals if they can keep the American people on task.”
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