Dueling Trump-Biden events offer contrasting virus responses

A presidential campaign that has largely been frozen for several months because of coronavirus is looking a bit more like those from or years. President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden swung through critical battleground states Thursday, presenting starkly different visions for America as it struggles with a pandemic.

Touring a shipyard in Marinette, Wisconsin, Trump insisted ecomy is “coming back at a level body ever imagined possible.” But in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Biden warned that “ miracles are coming" and slammed Trump's handling of virus.

“Amazingly, he hasn’t grasped most basic fact of this crisis: To fix ecomy we have to get control over virus,” Biden said. “He’s like a child who can’t believe this has happened to him. His whining and self-pity."

With just over four months remaining until election, contrasting styles of Trump and Biden are increasingly on display. president is itching to move past an outbreak that has dashed ecomy and killed more than 125,000 people. Biden, meanwhile, is seeking to present himself as a competent and calming leer rey to level with nation about hardships that may be required to emerge from current turmoil.

Beyond kcking Trump's leership, Biden spent much of Thursday defending Obama ministration’s signature health care law and decrying what he said was a White House-led effort to dismantle it via a court challenge. It was part of a larger Democratic effort

Trump, for his part, repeatedly took aim at Biden throughout his day in Wisconsin. During a Fox News town hall taped in Green Bay, Trump questioned Biden’s acuity and charged that more liberal wing of Democratic Party would be running show in a Biden ministration.

“He’s a candidate that will destroy this country,” Trump said. “And he may t do it himself. He will be run by a rical fringe group of lunatics that will destroy our country.”

Narrow 2016 victories in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania were vital in sending Trump to White House. That he would build his travel around trying to do that again — and that Biden would respond with trips meant to flip states back to Democratic — wouldn’t usually be a surprise. But coronavirus has

After long campaigning virtually from his Delaware home, Biden has in recent weeks begun visiting Pennsylvania, allowing him to target a swing state without venturing far. Lancaster is about an hour and 15 minutes by car from Biden’s house, and yet it is farst he’s traveled lately, aside from a trip to Houston to meet with family of George Floyd, whose death in police custody sparked protests around nation.

Trump, by contrast, std a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, last weekend and spoke at an Arizona megachurch on Tuesday. On Thursday, he visited a rural Wisconsin shipyard and taped a town hall to be brocast by Fox News Channel from an airport in Green Bay. Vice President Mike Pence also hit ar key state, Ohio.

Biden’s team has organized small events and enforced social distancing. Trump has refused to wear a mask in public, and his campaign says Biden is using a cautious approach to hide fact that he can’t draw large, enthusiastic crowds.

“I kw, as Americans, it’s t something we’re used to. But it matters,” Biden said of wearing a mask, ting he wears one “everywhere I go.”

Biden donned his mask while meeting in an outdoor courtyard with three mors and two children who told of benefiting from health care law. Beyond police cordon, a group of Trump supporters could be heard chanting “four more years” and “USA.”

Biden's subsequent speech was behind a placard proclaiming “Protect and Build on Affordable Care Act.” He scoffed at Trump's suggestion during last weekend's rally that he'd asked officials to slow down testing for coronavirus because it was uncovering more cases.

“He thinks finding out that more Americans are sick will make him look b. And that’s what he’s worried about,” Biden said. "He’s worried about looking b.”

Trump countered during his Wisconsin stop: "If we didn’t test, we wouldn’t have cases.”

Polls in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania show Biden ahe, but nearly every poll h Trump trailing in 2016 before his base came toger in final weeks of campaign.

Trump predictably went maskless for an event at Fincantieri Marinette Marine shipyard that was outside. Hundreds attended, and some didn't wear masks, despite requirements to do so.

Trump toured vessels under construction, n took credit for a new contract won in April to build Navy frigates at facility. Trump said it injected ecomic growth to community and saved plant from closure.