With Debates Behind Them, Biden And Trump Enter The Final Stretch Before Election Day

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Former Vice President Joe Biden speaks about the coronavirus on Friday in Wilmington, Del.

Andrew Harnik/AP

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Andrew Harnik/AP

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During Biden’s address — more policy speech than campaign stop — he ticked through four planks of his plan to curb the pandemic.

The former vice president said he would encourage governors to issue mask mandates, stand up a national testing strategy, issue clear guidance to states about how to make reopening decisions and invoke the Defense Production Act to beef up supplies of personal protective equipment. He also said treatments and vaccines should be made free and accessible to everyone once they’re available.

«I’m not going to shut down the country,» Biden said. «I’m going to shut down the virus.»

While Biden has made the pandemic a centerpiece of his message in the final days of the campaign, Trump has tried to shift the conversation away from the pandemic and defended his administration’s response.

During Thursday’s debate, Trump said the coronavirus pandemic «will go away, and as we say, we’re rounding the turn. We’re rounding the corner. It’s going away.»

In a campaign call on Friday, Trump adviser Jason Miller said the president’s two main goals for the debate were to remind voters he is the candidate fighting to get the economy open and that he is the outsider, while Biden is a «creature of the swamp.»

Both candidates will hit the road this weekend, with just a little more than a week left to go before Election Day.

Tonight, President Trump will hold campaign rallies in Florida, before heading to North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin on Saturday and New Hampshire on Sunday.

Biden is campaigning on Saturday in Pennsylvania, making stops near Scranton and in the Philadelphia suburbs.

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