Election 2020: CNN town hall with Joe Biden

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden speaks with CNN's Anderson Cooper at the CNN Presidential Town Hall in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Thursday, September 17.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden discussed an array of topics tonight during his CNN town hall, including President Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, policing in the US and what his campaign stands for.

Here are some of Biden’s most notable quotes from tonight’s event:

Read about the top takeaways from the town hall here.

Voter Susan Connors, who runs a local business, asked Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden what his plans are to build a bridge between Democrats and voters from the opposing party to lead the country “forward toward a common future.” Connors described seeing a “sea of Trump flags and yard signs” when she looked over her Biden sign from her front yard. 

The former vice president touted his ability to unify people.

“I have made my whole career based upon bringing people together and bringing the parties together. I’ve been relatively good at doing that,” Biden said.

Watch the exchange:

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden speaks at the CNN Presidential Town Hall in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Thursday.

Joe Biden said he supports continuing the use of hydraulic fracturing to open underground natural gas formations — a practice known as fracking — as a way to “transition” to cleaner kinds of energy.

Biden’s position on fracking, which is out of step with many in his party who would like to see the practice ended as a way to combat climate change, could politically help the former vice president in states like Pennsylvania, home to large natural gas deposits.

Biden has said he wants to gradually move away from the practice.

“Yes, I do. I do,” Biden said when asked by a voter if he would “support the continuation of fracking safely and with proper guidelines.”

Biden said he would also support putting union laborers to work to cap wells that are leaking.

“It’s important for this community. It’s important for Pennsylvania and Ohio and other states. It’s an important business and it’s a lot of wages involved in that,” Biden said. “But beyond that, beyond that we can also get people working now capping the wells that are left uncapped right now across this region.”

When asked by Anderson Cooper if he is trying to have it both ways on fracking, Biden said fracking “has to continue because we need a transition.”

“We’re going to get to net zero emissions by 2050 and we’ll get to net zero power emissions by 2035,” Biden said. “But there is no rationale to eliminate (fracking) right now.”

Watch more:

During the town hall, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden attacked President Trump for posing for pictures while holding a Bible in front of a church after protesters were forcibly removed from a park across from the White House. Biden suggested that Trump held the Bible upside down, and then retreated back to a bunker.

Biden said the protesters were removed so Trump could “walk across to a protestant church and hold a bible upside down — I don’t know if he ever opened it — upside down, and then go back to a bunker in the White House.”

Facts First: Biden gets two facts wrong here. Trump did not hold a Bible upside down and his visit to the bunker was a few days before this event.

On May 29, Trump was briefly taken to a White House bunker amid intense protests that evening. This was three days before the visit outside of St. John’s.

While posing in front of the church, Trump held a Bible out for the cameras. Photos and videos show that Trump held the Bible right side up.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly warned that electing Joe Biden would lead to widespread civil unrest and violence in the streets.

Biden, on Thursday night, joked about the claims, reminding Americans that Trump – despite his suggestions otherwise – is the one in the White House now, currently presiding over a country that has seen peaceful protesters killed and White supremacist groups march proudly through major cities.

The “President talks about, ‘in Joe Biden’s America,’ I gotta remind him, he may be really losing it. He’s president. I’m not president,” Biden said. “

Biden repeatedly condemned, as he’s done countless times in the past few months, any kind of violent protesting, rioting or looting. He also pointed out that one of Trump’s former top aides, Kellyanne Conway, said publicly that those things were politically beneficial to Trump.

“The more chaos and anarchy and vandalism and violence reigns,” Conway said on Fox News in August, “the better it is for the very clear choice on who’s best on public safety and law and order.”

The former vice president also blasted Trump for not calling out far-right hate groups with the vigor he attacks Democratic officials and left-wing protesters.

“Folks, I am waiting for the day when (Trump) says, ‘I condemn all of those White supremacists, I condemn those militia guys, as much as I do every other organizational structure,’” Biden said. 

Watch the moment play out:

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden claimed Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, contradicted the President’s stance on mask usage by suggesting widespread mask wearing could save 100,000 lives between now and January.

“By the way, his own CDC Director contradicted him recently. He said, if, in fact, you just wore this mask, nothing else but this mask, you would save between now and January another 100,000 lives,” Biden said.

Facts First: While Redfield did advocate for wearing masks to stop the spread of coronavirus in a congressional hearing Wednesday, and Trump did later say that Redfield misspoke, CNN could not find any record of Redfield providing these specific numbers concerning the number of lives that could be saved by mask-wearing. 

Testifying before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee on the government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, Redfield said, “I’m not going to comment directly about the President but I am going to comment as the CDC Director that facemasks, these face masks, are the most important, powerful public health tool we have.”

“I will continue to appeal for all Americans, all individuals in our country, to embrace these face coverings,” Redfield added. “I’ve said it, if we did it for six, 8, 10, 12 weeks, we’d bring this pandemic under control.”

He made headlines for further saying, “I might even go so far as to say that this face mask is more guaranteed to protect me against Covid than when I take the Covid vaccine.

Reached for comment, the Biden campaign pointed CNN to the latest forecast from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). As of early September, the IHME model predicts 224,000 more people in the US could die from the coronavirus by January, but with near-universal mask use the number of projected additional fatalities could decrease by more than half, or at least 100,000.

CNN has reached out to the CDC for comment.

When it comes to deploying the US military abroad under his presidency, Joe Biden said their presence would be for counterterrorism purposes, he said tonight during CNN’s town hall.

Biden said he was “opposed to the significant increase in our presence at the time in Afghanistan.”

Watch more:

According to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, the media claimed his election would set a precedent.

 “When you guys started talking on television about Biden, if he wins he’ll be the first person without an Ivy League degree to be elected President, I’m thinking who the hell makes you think I need an Ivy League degree to be President?”

Facts First: Not all past presidents graduated from college, let alone from the Ivy League. If elected, Biden would be the first president without an Ivy League degree since Ronald Reagan.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden speaks at the CNN Presidential Town Hall in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Thursday.

In one of his interviews with journalist Bob Woodward, President Donald Trump was asked if he believed he’d benefited from “White privilege.”

Trump said no – and mocked Woodward for even suggesting it.

Biden got the same question on Thursday night. His answer: Yes.

Biden didn’t go any further on the subject, though, again framing the choice between him and Trump as one centered fundamentally on class.

“Growing up here in Scranton, we’re used to guys to look down their nose at us,” Biden said. “We (are used) to people looking at us and thinking more suckers, look at us and think that we don’t, we’re not equivalent to them. If you didn’t have a college degree, you must be stupid.”

The former vice president, who served as a senator from Delaware for decades before that, noted news coverage that said he would be the first person without an Ivy League degree elected president. In fact, Biden and Harris are first Democratic ticket since 1984 with no Ivy League grad on it.

Biden attended the University of Delaware, before going on to the Syracuse University College of Law. Harris went to Howard University before returning out west to the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.

“We are as good as anybody else,” Biden said of himself and others from Scranton. “And guys like Trump, who inherit everything, and squandered what they inherited, are the people I’ve always had a problem with. Not the people who are busting their neck.” 

Watch the moment:

During the town hall, Biden criticized Trump for not warning the US about the coronavirus during this year’s State of the Union address.

“Imagine had (Trump) at the State of the Union stood up and said — when back in January I wrote an article for USA Today saying, ‘We’ve got a pandem-we’ve got a real problem’ — imagine if he had said something. How many more people would be alive?” Biden said.

Facts First: Trump spent 20 seconds of his February 4 State of the Union address on the coronavirus. A few days later, Trump told Bob Woodward privately that the coronavirus is more deadly than the flu, after speaking with Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier that day. It’s unclear what all Trump knew or believed about the coronavirus at the time of the address, though he continued to downplay it for weeks.

Here’s what Trump said about the virus during the State of the Union:

Protecting Americans’ health also means fighting infectious diseases. We are coordinating with the Chinese government and working closely together on the coronavirus outbreak in China. My administration will take all necessary steps to safeguard our citizens from this threat.

The USA Today article Biden wrote on January 27 criticized Trump’s rhetoric around and approach to the coronavirus, writing, “The possibility of a pandemic is a challenge Donald Trump is unqualified to handle as president.”

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden speaks at the CNN Presidential Town Hall in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Thursday.

Joe Biden said that his preparation for the three presidential debates against Donald Trump has so far been informal, but the former vice president said he is “looking forward” to taking on the President.

The Democratic nominee said there is not yet a person in his campaign playing Trump in debate preparation.

“There are a couple of people, they ask me questions if they were like as if they were President Trump,” Biden said. “But I’m looking forward to it.”

Trump said this week that he is preparing by doing what he does “every day, by just doing what I’m doing.”

Watch the moment:

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden at the CNN Presidential Town Hall in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Thursday.

Law enforcement officers must be held more accountable, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said tonight during CNN’s town hall when asked how Black parents should talk to their children about interacting with police.

As president, Biden said he would bring together a coalition of police chiefs, officers, unions and communities of color to “sit at the table and agree on the fundamental things that need to be done, including much more rigorous back ground checks that apply for and become police officers.”

Watch Biden explain:

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden speaks with CNN's Anderson Cooper at the CNN Presidential Town Hall in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Thursday.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden laid out his plan for ensuring voters in future elections don’t face the current uncertainty regarding mail-in ballots being counted, and decried President Trump’s efforts to put into question the “legitimacy of the election.”

Biden added that he is “confident” there will be a “massive turnout” in November’s election. He urged the American people to be informed about when and where they will vote. “Plan now,” Biden said.

To learn more about important election deadlines and local voter resources visit CNN’s voter guide.

Watch Biden explain:

Joe Biden condemned President Trump’s characterization — as reported by The Atlantic — of those killed and injured at war as “losers” and “suckers.”

His answer came after a question at CNN’s town hall from a woman whose mother was diagnosed with multiple myeloma about how he would make health care affordable.

“My son died of cancer. Came home from Iraq, and I have to tell you, it really, really offended me, when he volunteered to go there for a year, and he came home because of stage 4 glioblastoma, and the President refers to guys like my son … as losers. Losers,” Biden said.

“Talk about losers,” an angry Biden added.

He said coronavirus-related health coverage should be covered by the government, and touted his health care plan, which would preserve Obamacare and add a government-run “public option.”

He also slammed Trump as his administration is backing an effort to undo the Affordable Care Act in court.

Watch the exchange:

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden speaks at the CNN Presidential Town Hall in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Thursday.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said Thursday that he was impressed with Dr. Robert R. Redfield, director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for “standing up” to President Trump over wearing masks to mitigate the spread of coronavirus. 

During a Senate committee hearing, Redfield said a face mask may provide better protection against coronavirus than a vaccine. Trump demeaned Redfield, saying the CDC chief was “confused” in his congressional testimony.

“Wearing this mask is about making sure, and when you wear it, making sure no one else gets sick,” Biden said. “It’s not to protect you so much, but to make sure you don’t infect someone else. I call that a patriotic requirement. I call that what we should be doing right now. And if the President had done his job, had done his job from the beginning, all the people would still be alive.”

Watch more:

Former Vice President Joe Biden tried to cast the choice between him and President Donald Trump as a clash between wage-earning, blue collar Americans and a wealthy few, who profit off the work of others.

Asked by a patient advocate at a nearby cancer treatment center what he would do for health care workers, Biden suggested he would seek to up their wages before pivoting to a bigger picture criticism of Trump’s economic policy.

Health care workers, who have been on the frontlines of the Covid crisis, he added, should be making more than $15 an hour.

Earlier in the evening, Biden said that Trump’s decision to downplay the pandemic early on – a decision Trump has subsequently claimed he made to prevent a “panic” – was, in fact, an effort, to keep the stock market from tanking and endangering his re-election.

He re-upped that line of attack here.

“All he thinks about as the stock market,” Biden said. “In my neighborhood in Scranton, not a lot of people (owned stock). We have to make sure that health care workers are paid, and paid a decent wage. At $15 an hour? It’s not enough for a health care worker.”

See the moment:

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden speakat the CNN Presidential Town Hall in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Thursday, September 17, 2020. (Gabriella Demczuk for CNN)

The behavior the White House administration has engaged in to discourage people from following sound scientific advice in an effort to thwart the coronavirus pandemic is “sick,” former Vice President Joe Biden said tonight CNN’s town hall.

See the moment:

Joe Biden said it was “outrageous” that Attorney General Bill Barr recently said nationwide lockdowns to combat the coronavirus were the “greatest intrusion on civil liberties” in history “other than slavery.”

Biden has sought to keep the focus of the presidential election on the coronavirus and President Donald Trump’s missteps, believing that his failures on the matter will cost him reelection.

“It’s been the failure of this President to deal with this virus, and he knew about it,” Biden said, noting that in January he wrote an opinion piece on the coming pandemic. “He knew the detail of it. He knew it in clear terms.”

Barr’s comments came while he was addressing a Constitution Day celebration hosted by Hillsdale College. The event’s host asked Barr to explain the “constitutional hurdles for forbidding a church from meeting during Covid-19.”

Watch more:

Former Vice President Joe Biden laid out his plan tonight to help Americans affected financially by the coronavirus pandemic.

The question on getting Americans back to work was raised by Sheila Shaufler, who voted for President Trump in 2016. She claimed that many frontline workers are making much less than people on unemployment who she said have benefited from the stimulus payments.

Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, said he would first address the need for additional health care workers and “pay them in ways that is a living wage.”

“So they don’t have to live hand to mouth,” he said.

Watch the moment:

Joe Biden defended peaceful protesters who gathered to protest racial injustice and police brutality over the summer, saying their gatherings were different than rallies President Donald Trump has held in recent weeks.

“Covid safety is a problem no matter where people are … if they don’t have a mask on,” Biden said. But, he added, protesters “have a right to speak.”

Biden said governors should institute mask mandates now.

“What takes away your freedom is not being able to see your kid; not being able to go to a football game or a baseball game; not being able to see your mom or dad, sick in the hospital,” he said.

This is how the moment played out:

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden made it clear tonight during CNN’s town hall that he does not trust President Trump when it comes to determining when a Covid-19 vaccine would be safe to take.

Biden threw his support emphatically behind Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Muddled vaccine messaging: There’s no substantial disagreement between President Trump and the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over the timeline for a coronavirus vaccine, Fauci said Thursday.

Fauci said Trump and CDC director Dr. Robert Redfield were “essentially” right Wednesday when they each gave what seemed like a different timeline for a potential coronavirus vaccine said Fauci, who is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Redfield told a Senate hearing that it would likely be the second or third quarter of next year – that means late spring or summer – before widespread vaccination could be underway in the US. Asked about this during a news conference later in the day, Trump said Redfield “made a mistake” and was “confused.” He said a vaccine will be available soon, possibly as early as next month.

Fauci did not see a big conflict.

Watch more:

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden slammed President Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, saying if he had acted earlier he would have saved many thousands of lives. Biden called Trump’s lagged actions and downplaying of the virus “close to criminal.”

Biden denied ever seeing a scenario where he would downplay the virus or downplay critical information because he did not want to cause panic.

“Not at all,” Biden said. “The idea that you are not going to not tell people what you have been told that this virus is incredibly contagious — seven times more contagious than the flu — you breathe the air and you get it sucked into your lungs — what has he done?”

Biden told CNN’s Anderson Cooper that back in March, he was calling for the need to have masks and have Trump “stand and tell us what is going in.”

“We have to make sure we lay out to the American people, the truth. Tell them the truth,” Biden said regarding the messaging that is needed to protect Americans from the pandemic.

Biden said there has never been a time where the American people have not been able to “step up,” and added that Trump should “step down.”

Watch:

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden shared words of solace for those who have lost loved ones due to the coronavirus pandemic, including Shani Adams whose sister died after contracting the virus.

Adams asked Biden tonight during CNN’s town hall what he would do to protect people at work if elected president.

At the heart of Biden’s plan is the need for more Covid-19 testing, he said.

Biden criticized President Trump for failing to enact a federal mask mandate.

“The President continues to think that masks don’t matter very much, although he says it and has these large gatherings with everybody around with no masks on. And it’s extremely dangerous. And so there’s a lot of people, a lot of people hurt. A lot of people not being able to see their families,” he added.

Watch the moment:

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and CNN's Anderson Cooper speak on stage at the CNN Presidential Town Hall in Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Thursday.

CNN’s town hall with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has begun. The former vice president will face questions from Pennsylvania voters in an unconventional setup due to the coronavirus pandemic — a drive-in town hall.

Biden’s presidential campaign has made character its centerpiece, as the Democratic nominee casts the 2020 presidential race as a test of the “soul of the nation” against President Trump.

But he has also released a stream of policy proposals outlining what he would try to accomplish in office. And that platform is likely to be a focus tonight.

Here are some key policy issues that may take center stage:

Read about Biden’s proposals on these topics here.

CNN is hosting its first political drive-in town hall of the 2020 presidential election tonight. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden will face questions from viewers live in a setup in the parking lot of PNC Field in Moosic and CNN’s Anderson Cooper will moderate the discussion.

Thirty-five cars will file into the parking lot, where a stage and monitors have been set up, and audience members and cars will be spaced out to comply with social distancing guidelines, according to Kate Lunger, the vice president of CNN’s special events team.

There will be about 100 people in attendance at PNC Field, which is the home of the minor league baseball team the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders. The event location is a short drive from Biden’s childhood home in Scranton, Pennsylvania.

CNN is following all of the local guidelines and restrictions put in place due to the coronavirus pandemic, Lunger said, and everybody attending and working the town hall will have their temperatures taken and will answer screening questions. Outdoor events and gatherings of more than 250 people are prohibited, according to Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf and the state’s Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine. Wearing masks when outside of the home is mandatory.

Voters at the town hall will be able to sit in their car and tune to an FM station on their car radio to hear the town hall, or will be able to sit next to their car to watch the event, according to Lunger.

Lunger noted the array of new technical and logistical challenges that putting on this type of event poses. For example, the control room for Thursday’s event will be located back in Washington, DC, which is unlike town halls the network has put on in the past, where everything has been on site.

“The good news is we have great teams across all the company who’ve done these town halls with us for the last few years, so everybody knows their role but everyone’s trying to figure out how to operate in this new world in the same way while being Covid-safe,” Lunger said.

CNN’s Anderson Cooper previews how the event will work:

President Donald Trump sits with ABC New anchor George Stephanopoulos for a town hall event at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia on September 15.

President Donald Trump’s appearance at the ABC town hall in Pennsylvania earlier this week was a reminder of one of his great weaknesses — his difficulty connecting to the life experiences and emotions that average Americans try to share with him.

Trump’s inability to empathize in those one-on-one encounters stems from his narcissism and his tendency to turn every policy observation into a discussion about himself (usually accompanied by grandiose praise of his own performance). His rival Joe Biden, on the other hand, does not have the same gifts as Trump in firing up an audience at a political rally, but he excels in situations that demand empathy.

In those hundreds of moments, Biden created an intimacy that often gave his listener a sense that he understood them and was on their side.

It has been much more difficult for Biden to create those moments in the coronavirus pandemic from a distance, but look for him to do so tonight as he tries to play up the huge contrast between his ability to emote and empathize and that of Trump.

Biden’s campaign and the Democratic convention were rooted in the notion that the former Delaware senator could be the “Healer-in-Chief.” He will have a rare opportunity to show that side — and why Democrats think it matters — as he strives to connect with his questioners at tonight’s CNN Presidential Town Hall, which begins at 8 p.m. ET.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden departs the Delaware State Building after early voting in the state's primary election on September 14 in Wilmington, Delaware.

During a fundraiser Thursday afternoon, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden warned that President Trump is trying to “lay the seeds” to contest the election as illegitimate if he loses in November. 

“It’s not an exaggeration to suggest that he’s trying to lay the seeds that the election is not legitimate,” Biden said of Trump. 

Per pool reports, he referenced the classified briefings he is now receiving as the nominee: “It goes beyond what he’s saying. It goes to what he’s encouraging.”

According to pool reports, Biden referenced the idea that Trump may be ahead in the early counting on election night, but said he didn’t think that would happen, because his own supporters have figured out that they can vote early to stanch that. 

“You saw that fella Caputo that they just fired from HHS,” Biden said, referring to Michael Caputo who is taking a two-month leave of absence from his post at the  Department of Health and Human Services. “What’s he doing? He’s talking about potential uprisings, physical force, they’re going to have armies? No president has ever done anything like this.”

Biden said he thinks that’s why he’s been endorsed by so many Republicans — not because they agree with him, but because they fear what Trump will do. 

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden boards a plane at Allegheny County Airport on August 31 in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania.

Ahead of tonight’s town hall, former Vice President Joe Biden reassured Senate Democrats he would mount a vigorous effort in the campaign’s final stretch, barnstorming the country through key swing states and helping crucial Senate races in the process, according to Democratic senators on a conference call Thursday.

Biden, speaking for roughly 25 minutes and taking a few questions, said repeatedly he was not finding comfort in polls showing him ahead of President Trump

Delaware Sen. Chris Coons, who occupies Biden’s old Senate seat, said the party’s presidential nominee spoke about how “optimistic he is about the election but he must have said his three times, I take nothing for granted. I know the polls look OK right now but I’m working tirelessly,” pointing how he was just in Florida and would soon head to other key battlegrounds. Coons said that Biden reiterated “the core themes of the campaign, fighting for the soul of the country.”

“I think he’s going to be traveling more,” said Sen. Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat. “I think the message was how they’re organizing to win and how they’re taking nothing for granted.”

Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine noted that Biden — a former Delaware senator —said he was “paying attention to the Senate races” too in the battle for control of the chamber.

“I think he’s going to be very vigorous in the last stretch of the campaign,” Kaine, a former VP nominee, said after the call.

Supporters of President Donald Trump share a laugh as they wait for the president to participate in a Latinos for Trump Coalition roundtable on Monday, September 14 in Phoenix.

President Trump’s reelection campaign’s early, aggressive play to cut into Democrats’ advantage with Latino voters has Democratic elected officials and operatives concerned that a softening of support from the group could be decisive in November’s election.

Despite a message many say resonates with Spanish-speaking voters, those officials and operatives say Joe Biden’s presidential campaign has been slow to commit the needed resources and time to at least match where Hillary Clinton finished with the key demographic in 2016.

What the polls say: A string of polls shows Trump has increased his standing with Hispanic voters over the last four years. Although the President is still trailing heavily — an analysis by CNN’s Harry Enten found Biden is winning Hispanic voters by 28 percentage points — Biden is underperforming Clinton, who led by 37 percentage points in an average of final pre-election polls.

The narrowing gap with Latinos is putting more pressure on Biden to hold or even expand his lead with White and older voters, two blocs with whom the Democrat has cut into Trump’s lead, allowing him to maintain an overall lead in national polling and crucial states, like Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.

Asked why his numbers among Hispanic voters are as low as they are right now, Biden said on Monday that his number are much higher than Trump’s, but added, “But they gotta go higher.”

Some Democrats, concerned that Biden’s advantage with White voters could narrow, believe he needs to dial up his focus — and dedicate more resources — toward targeting the diverse array of Latino voters in key states like Florida, Nevada and Arizona that could tip the balance for the former vice president and win him the White House in November.

How the Biden campaign is expanding outreach: Biden’s campaign contends that they are making significant investments in courting Latino voters, including hiring targeted vote directors in 11 states, using Latino-run mail and polling firms to court voters, and running micro-targeted, bespoke ads that employ Mexican accents in Arizona, Cuban accents in Miami and Puerto Rican accents in Orlando and Tampa.

And the overarching issue facing the community right now, said Julie Chavez Rodriguez, a Biden campaign deputy campaign manager, is the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“The devastation that the community has seen both from a public health perspective and an economic perspective is one that has drastically impacted Latino voters in all of the battle ground states,” said Chavez Rodriguez. “The reality is over 25,000 Latinos have lost their lives as a result of Covid. The numbers didn’t have to be that high. … Those are the realities that I think Latinos are facing today.”

The campaign is also working to combat election disinformation, with organizers reporting that an array of wild, false conspiracy theories are being directed at Spanish-speaking voters, especially in battleground Florida.

Rodriguez said that the campaign is “seeing voter suppression at a whole new level,” so while the Trump campaign is actively reaching out to Latino voters, others are working to “keep folks from actually engaging in a critical election that has a huge impact.”

“It is really disturbing that some of those tactics are being used,” she said

But even Democrats close to Biden concede that it took the campaign a long time — because of the spread of the coronavirus and the campaign’s money issues early in the general election — to commit the needed resources to Latino outreach.

Read the full story here.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden puts on his mask after speaking at a campaign event on September 4 in Wilmington, Delaware.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said Wednesday that politics should never interfere with the development, approval and distribution of a potential Covid-19 vaccine.

“They should be determined by science and safety alone,” he said.

“One thing is certain, we can’t allow politics to interfere with the vaccine in any way,” Biden said.

A majority of Americans believe political pressure from the Trump administration will cause the US Food and Drug Administration to rush approval of a coronavirus vaccine before Election Day on Nov. 3, according to a poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Biden said that a vaccine would offer a “way back to normalcy” for those in the US and around the world, and said he is “more hopeful than ever in the power of science to get us there.” But Biden cautioned that the process cannot be rushed, and a vaccine is not going to become ready “overnight.”

“Let me be clear: I trust vaccines, I trust scientists, but I don’t trust Donald Trump. And at this moment, the American people can’t either,” Biden said.

Biden noted that the development of a vaccine is only part of the challenge, and said that the distribution of the vaccine is “as complex and challenging as one of the most sensitive military operations.”

He said if he is elected President of the United States in November, he would implement “an effective distribution plan from the minute I take office.”

Biden received a virtual briefing by public heath experts on how to stop coronavirus shortly before delivering his remarks, and said he spoke to the experts about an implementation plan and timetable for the distribution of a potential vaccine.

The former vice president said he also spoke to the experts about ways to stop the spread of the virus before any potential vaccine is developed. He mentioned uniform national guidelines, standards on social distancing that can be applied based on the needs of any particular community and more effective approaches to testing and tracing.

Biden had previously said that if he could get a vaccine tomorrow he would take it. “If it cost me the election, I’d do it,” Biden said. But he expressed concern that Trump has undermined public confidence in a vaccine.

Read more here.

President Donald Trump arrives for an ABC News town hall at National Constitution Center on Tuesday, September 15, in Philadelphia.

President Trump faced life outside his own political bubble on Tuesday, where his self-congratulation, buck passing and audacious falsehoods conspicuously failed to meet the moment when he was confronted by undecided voters.

Trump appeared at an ABC News town hall in Philadelphia, and peppered a socially distanced audience with the rhetoric and talking points that delight his loyal base. But if his goal was to satisfy relatively small groups of voters who polls show haven’t yet made up their mind, the President appeared to fall short and rarely addressed the substance of questions about his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, race relations and health care.

It was an unusual moment of exposure for a leader who demands constant public praise from his subordinates. On Tuesday night, audience members granted him the respect due to his office but none of the adulation he craves.

Trump was largely cordial and likely came across as strong to voters that love him. But his performance offered Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden multiple openings only two weeks before their first debate clash — one of the last potential turning points of the White House race. First-term presidents who have spent years expecting deference from everyone they meet often get a shock in the first debate showdown with a challenger keen to get in their grill. Tuesday’s event suggests the surprise may be especially acute for Trump when he faces Biden on Sept. 29.

Answers that normally draw wild cheers at Trump’s packed campaign events fell flat when he was confronted by voters who appeared to want to cut through bluster and propaganda. And his responses did little to recognize the magnitude of the challenges facing the nation in a fearful year, suggesting that the President has yet to find the language or the appeals that might turn around an election he so far seems to be losing.

Read the full analysis here and CNN’s fact checks of the event can be found here.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden arrives to speak before a round table event with military veterans at Hillsborough Community College on September 15 in Tampa, Florida.

Joe Biden’s presidential campaign has made character its centerpiece, as the Democratic nominee casts the 2020 presidential race as a test of the “soul of the nation” against President Trump.

But he has also released a stream of policy proposals outlining what he would try to accomplish in office. And that platform is likely to be a focus tonight as Biden appears on CNN for a town hall in which he’ll face questions from voters.

Biden won the Democratic primary advocating more moderate policies than many of his competitors. He has since embraced some proposals from former rivals, including climate plans first offered by Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee and bankruptcy ideas advanced by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. His campaign and that of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders also jointly crafted a policy road map in the months after Biden defeated Sanders.

What to know about Biden’s key policy proposals:

Read more about Biden’s policies here.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden speaks on the fourth night of the Democratic National Convention from the Chase Center on August 20 in Wilmington, Delaware.

CNN will host the first political drive-in town hall of the 2020 presidential election tonight — the latest adaptation to campaigning during the coronavirus pandemic.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden will face questions from Pennsylvania voters in an unconventional setup in the parking lot of PNC Field in Moosic. The town hall will take place at 8 p.m. ET, on tonight and CNN’s Anderson Cooper will moderate.

The town hall will be Biden’s first prime time town hall since accepting the Democratic nomination for president in August, and comes less than seven weeks from Election Day. President Trump appeared at an ABC News town hall in Philadelphia earlier this week.  

Where things stand in the race: Biden continues to hold the lead in the race, and is up 52% to 42% over Trump among likely voters nationally, according to a recent CBS News/YouGov poll. The race has barely budged, according to CNN’s Harry Enten, even after the Republican and Democratic conventions, protests and unrest over systemic racism and police brutality in cities across the nation, and as the US navigates its response to the coronavirus pandemic.

After the two political conventions in August, which were forced online because of the coronavirus pandemic, a recent CNN Poll conducted by SSRS showed Biden maintained his advantage over Trump. Among registered voters, 51% backed Biden, and 43% supported Trump.