President-elect Joe Biden and VP-elect Kamala Harris addressed the nation on Monday, Nov. 16, 2020, regarding the escalating coronavirus epidemic and its deleterious effect on the U.S. economy and the country’s collective psyche.
Biden, in particular, beseeched the current president to acquiesce to the will of the people and begin a normal presidential transition, lest the nation suffers even more dire ramifications from the viral outbreak.
“More people may die if we don’t coordinate,” Biden said from Wilmington, Delaware, according to ABC 6.
Calling the distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine a “huge, huge undertaking,” Biden said an expeditious transfer of power is paramount to corralling the disease. “So it’s important that it be done, that there be coordination now, now, as rapidly as we can get that done,” he said.
The president-elect also addressed issues of inequality and resuscitating the U.S. economy but also insisted that those issues cannot be rectified until COVID-19 is controlled and ultimately obliterated.
“Once we shut down the virus and deliver economic relief to workers and businesses, then we can start to build back better than before,” Biden said.
Prior to the address, Biden and Harris hosted a virtual meeting with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, General Motors CEO Mary Barra and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and other leaders to come up with ways to keep the economy afloat while the nation fights an invisible biological enemy.
View the speeches by Harris and then Biden, which begins at about the 22-minute mark.
