前副总统乔·拜登周四，他呼吁在接下来的三个月里，在全国范围内立即实施面具禁令，并把重点放在他将如何应对流行病危机与他所说的总统处理不当相比唐纳德·特朗普。
特朗普在一次晚间新闻发布会上回击道:“我们希望拥有某种自由，这就是我们的目的。”
特朗普说:“他希望联邦政府向守法公民发布全面的新命令，希望美国总统只需轻轻一笔，就能命令3亿多美国公民至少连续三个月戴口罩。”
值得注意的是，拜登呼吁各州州长在他们的州发布掩盖命令，尽管特朗普说拜登不理解总统发布这种命令的权力。
特朗普继续说:“不同的州有很大的不同，无论是就大气层本身而言，还是就日冕问题而言。”“他没有说明总统有什么权力发布这样的命令，也没有说明联邦执法部门可能如何执行这一命令，也没有说明我们为什么要对全国各地的州长施压，因为很多州长都做得很好，他们知道需要什么。”
虽然拜登说他在打电话时依靠的是健康专家，但特朗普继续质疑口罩的有效性，他说，“也许它们只是好，也许它们不是那么好。”
尽管拜登此前支持全国范围的戴口罩，但他在周四早些时候的讲话中明确表示，在接下来的三个月里，“至少”每个美国人在公开场合都应该戴口罩，每个州长都应该立即将此作为一项命令。
“今天我想谈一件事，非常直截了当。这与民主党、共和党或无党派人士没有任何关系。这与一个简单的提议有关。”冠状病毒与他新当选的竞选伙伴，参议员卡马拉哈里斯，继续他和哈里斯周三开始在全国首次亮相的主要攻击线简报。
乔·拜登呼吁全国范围的面具授权。
“让我们立即在全国范围内制定一项面具法令——我们将拯救生命。”https://t.co/pi2KaoamQIpic.twitter.com/8c5yPAsSpK
——美国广播公司新闻直播(@美国广播公司新闻直播)2020年8月13日
拜登-哈里斯竞选团队并没有忘记，总统在新闻发布会上首次宣布疾病控制和预防中心对这种做法的指导后，花了两个月时间才在公共场合戴上口罩。
“据专家估计，在未来三个月内，它将拯救4万多条生命。如果人们采取负责任的行动，40，000人的生命。这与你的权利无关。这关系到你作为美国人的责任。”
拜登说，他希望总统现在已经“吸取了教训”，面具可以拯救生命，但他补充说，这与政治无关。
“看，这是美国。做一个爱国者。保护你的同胞。保护你的同胞。站起来。做正确的事情。做正确的事情。”“所以，让我们在全国范围内建立一个面具授权，立即开始。”
哈里斯在拜登讲话后说，呼吁面具授权“真正的领导。”
“真正的领袖是乔·拜登。大声说出来。哈里斯说:“有时候，你会告诉我们一些我们不一定想听的东西，但我们需要知道。”
参议员卡马拉哈里斯(Kamala Harris)说:“关于乔，美国人民知道的是，他在我们国家的领导角色一直是做对我们国家人民最好的事。”https://t.co/f6jjBBNEAXpic.twitter.com/QgCTCL9Csa
——美国广播公司新闻直播(@美国广播公司新闻直播)2020年8月13日
哈里斯还鼓励公众继续向特朗普政府施压，要求其制定一个疫苗的时间表新冠肺炎。
“我认为，美国人民关注即将到来的选举，问白宫的现任主人，‘我什么时候能接种疫苗?’这一点很重要”她说。因为现任总统可能会对疫苗做出一些宏伟的姿态，但在你能回答这个问题之前，这真的无关紧要。"
在即将到来的选举中，冠状病毒是许多选民最关心的问题——民主党人希望向选民强调，他们认为他们的选票会比总统更好地应对这种致命的流行病。
周四早些时候，在特拉华州威尔明顿市中心一家酒店的临时电视演播室里，拜登和哈里斯通过视频电话参加了他们与医疗保健专家的首次联合COVID-19简报会，当时美国死于该病毒的人数正在上升。
候选人坐在隔开的桌子前，面对着一个大屏幕，屏幕上至少有四名医生——至少其中一些人在过去的四个月里定期向拜登做简报——在他们随后的讲话之前，候选人与记者进行了简短的交谈。
“他们是一些最聪明的人，不仅在我们国家，在国际上也是如此。正如副总统自这场大流行开始以来一直所说的那样，应该由公共卫生专业人员来领导我们国家的政策，以解决这场致命的大流行。”
拜登-哈里斯竞选团队将此次活动分为两次简报会，一次将讨论公共卫生危机，另一次将讨论大流行引发的经济衰退，前美联储主席珍妮特·耶伦将作为小组成员向候选人介绍经济情况。
拜登说，简报的重点是COVID-19对不同种族的不成比例的影响，以及个人防护设备和测试能力的可用性。
这些事件发生的前一天，拜登和哈里斯首次以竞选搭档的身份联合亮相，抨击特朗普对冠状病毒危机的回应。
“这种病毒几乎影响了每个国家，但它对美国的影响比任何其他发达国家都要严重，这是有原因的。哈里斯说:“这是因为特朗普从一开始就没有认真对待这个问题。”
拜登称特朗普吹嘘自己是一个交易撮合者，但在谈判陷入僵局之际，他却去高尔夫球场，而不是在过道对面为美国人争取一项冠状病毒救助协议，“就像其他总统在危机中所做的那样，让美国人得到他们需要和应得的救助。”
自从病毒到达美国本土以来，两人一起抓住了总统关于病毒的混合信息。
特朗普在整个6月份继续举行大型集会，尽管医疗保健专家警告说，出于社会距离的考虑，他将限制集体活动，尤其是室内活动。他在4月底基本上停止了举行公开的冠状病毒简报会，直到最近，在3个月之后的7月下旬，在糟糕的民调数字下，他又恢复了这些活动。
联邦政府在很大程度上仍然缺乏重开学校的国家战略，拜登和哈里斯竞选团队可能会抓住这一点，而特朗普继续推动全面的面对面教学。
哈里斯周三对特朗普的言论进行了猛烈抨击，称目前的州政府何时以及如何重新开放“完全混乱”
大会倒计时
两次竞选都面临着在COVID-19时代发表获奖感言的挑战，基本上没有前几年的盛况。
拜登竞选团队周四证实，拜登和哈里斯都将在位于特拉华州威尔明顿海滨的大型活动场所大通中心发表民主党全国代表大会的获奖感言。
特朗普表示，他将在宾夕法尼亚州盖茨堡战场的白宫发表获奖感言，尽管这两个地方都受到了批评。
尽管民主党全国代表大会决定让所有的发言人都出现在现场，而不是在威斯康星州的密尔沃基，特朗普还是宣布他将于周一——民主党全国代表大会的第一天——前往威斯康星州。
特朗普周三晚在一次与支持者的电话会议上表示:“事实上，我会在周一到场，并在整个竞选期间和之后多次到场。”
Biden calls for mask mandates nationwide for 3 months, targeting Trump's pandemic response
Former Vice PresidentJoe Bidenon Thursday called for immediate mask mandates nationwide for the next three months, keeping the focus on drawing a stark contrast between how he would respond to thepandemic crisiscompared to how he says it's been mishandled by PresidentDonald Trump.
Trump fired back at an evening news conference, saying, "We want to have a certain freedom, that's what we’re about."
"He wants the federal government to issue a sweeping new mandate to law-abiding citizens, wants the president of the United States with the mere stroke of a pen to order over 300 million American citizens to wear a mask for a minimum of three straight months," Trump said.
Biden, notably, called on governors to issue mask mandates in their states, though Trump said Biden doesn't understand the powers of the president to issue such an order.
"Different states are much different, both in terms of the atmosphere itself and also in terms of the corona problem," Trump continued. "He does not identify what authority the president has to issue such a mandate or how federal law enforcement could possibly enforce it or why we would be stepping on governors throughout our country, many of whom have done a very good job and they know what is needed."
While Biden said he was leaning on health experts in making the call, Trump continued to question the effectiveness of masks, saying "maybe they are just good, maybe they are not so good."
Though Biden has previously supported nationwide mask-wearing, he specified his call in remarks earlier Thursday, saying that every American should wear a mask when they're in public for the next three months "at a minimum" and every governor should make it a mandate immediately.
"Today I want to talk about one thing, very straightforward. It doesn't have anything to do with Democrats, Republicans, or Independents. It has to do with a simple simple proposition," Biden said following acoronavirusbriefing with his newly-minted running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, continuing the main attack line he and Harris started making in their nationwide debut on Wednesday.
Joe Biden calls for nationwide mask mandate.
"Let's institute a mask mandate, nationwide, starting immediately—and we will save lives."https://t.co/pi2KaoamQIpic.twitter.com/8c5yPAsSpK
— ABC News Live (@ABCNewsLive)August 13, 2020
It's not lost on the Biden-Harris campaign that it took the president two months to wear a mask in public after he first announced the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance on the practice in a news conference.
"The estimates by the experts are it will save over 40,000 lives in the next three months. 40,000 lives if people act responsibly. And it's not about your rights. It's about your responsibilities as an American," Biden said.
Biden said he hopes the president has "learned the lesson" now that masks save lives but added it's not about politics.
"Look, this is America. Be a patriot. Protect your fellow citizens. Protect your fellow citizens. Step up. Do the right thing. Do the right thing," Biden implored. "So let's institute a mask mandate nationwide, starting immediately."
Harris, speaking after Biden, said the call for a mask mandate "real leadership."
"What real leadership looks like is Joe Biden. To speak up. Sometimes, telling us the stuff that we don't necessarily want to hear, but we need to know," Harris said.
"The thing about Joe that the American people know is that his role of leadership in our country has always been about doing what's best for the people of our country," Sen. Kamala Harris says.https://t.co/f6jjBBNEAXpic.twitter.com/QgCTCL9Csa
— ABC News Live (@ABCNewsLive)August 13, 2020
Harris also encouraged the public to keep pressure on the Trump administration for a timeline on a vaccine forCOVID-19.
"I think it's important that the American people looking at the election coming up, ask the current occupant of the White House, 'When am I going to get vaccinated?'" she said. "Because there may be some grand gestures offered by the current president, about a vaccine, but it really doesn't matter until you can answer the question."
Heading into the election, the coronavirus is an issue at the top of the ticket for many voters -- and Democrats want to highlight to voters how they say their ticket would handle the deadly pandemic better than the president.
Earlier Thursday, inside a makeshift, television-like studio at a hotel in downtown Wilmington, Delaware, Biden and Harris participated in their first joint COVID-19 briefing with health care experts over a video call as deaths from the virus rise in the United States.
Seated at spaced-out tables that faced one another before a large screen that featured at least four doctors -- at least some of whom have been regularly briefing Biden for the last four months -- the candidates briefly spoke with reporters before their later remarks.
"These are some of the brightest minds, not only in our country but internationally. And as the vice president has been saying since the beginning of this pandemic it should be the public health professionals that are leading policy in our country to address this lethal pandemic," Harris told reporters.
The Biden-Harris campaign presented the event as two briefings in one that will address both the public health crisis and the economic downturn from the pandemic -- with former Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen appearing as a part of the group briefing the candidates on the economy.
Biden said the briefing focused on the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on different races and the availability of PPE and testing capacity.
The events come one day after Biden and Harris' first joint appearance as running mates in which the pair slammed Trump's response to the coronavirus crisis.
"This virus has impacted almost every country, but there's a reason it has hit America worse than any other advanced nation. It's because of Trump's failure to take it seriously from the start," Harris said Wednesday, the same day the U.S. reported its highest number of deaths from coronavirus in a single day since mid-May.
Biden called out Trump for touting himself as a dealmaker yet taking to the golf course instead of working across the aisle on a coronavirus relief deal for Americans while negotiations hit an impasse "like every other president has done in a crisis, to get Americans the relief they need and deserve."
Together the two hit on the president's mixed messages on the virus since it arrived on U.S. soil.
Trump continued to hold mega-rallies through June, despite warnings from health care experts to limit group events, especially indoors, due to social distancing concerns, and he largely stopped holding public coronavirus briefings at the end of April, until recently reviving them three months later in late July amid poor polling numbers.
The federal government still largely lacks a national strategy on reopening schools, a point the Biden and Harris campaign are likely to seize on, while Trump continues the push for full in-person instruction.
Harris on Wednesday took a quick swipe at Trump on schools calling the current state over when and how to reopen "complete chaos."
Countdown to Conventions
Both campaigns also have the challenge of delivering acceptance speeches in the time of COVID-19, largely without the pomp and circumstance of previous years.
The Biden campaign confirmed Thursday that Biden and Harris will both give their acceptance speeches for the Democratic National Convention at the Chase Center, a large event space on the waterfront in Wilmington, Delaware.
Trump said he'll deliver his acceptance speech from the White House of the battlefield of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, despite criticism to both venues.
And in spite of the Democratic National Convention making the move to have all its speakers appear virtually instead of in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Trump announced he would travel to Wisconsin Monday, the first day of the DNC.
"I'll be there, as a matter of fact, on Monday and many times throughout the campaign and beyond," Trump said on a tele-rally with supporters Wednesday night.
