“Mr. President, where are you?” Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden asked about President Trump’s role in re-opening schools and providing coronavirus relief funding.  Biden spoke during a news conference ahead of a trip to Kenosha, Wisconsin.

Biden called on the President to fund $200 billion to safely reopen schools and universities around the country amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“Get off Twitter, and start talking to Congressional leaders from both parties,” Biden suggested.  “Invite them to the Oval Office.”  Biden noted that Trump claimed to be a brilliant negotiator, but he’s been absent from the negotiations on a coronavirus aid bill.

Biden then took questions from the assembled media, saying that charges should be brought against officers and protestors who undertake violence or injure/kill others.  “Let the judicial system work,” Biden said.  “Let justice be done.”

“Nothing in this administration is normal,” Biden said when asked if there was anytime he was put “on standby” while vice president, as Mike Pence reportedly was when Trump was rushed to Walter Reed Military Medical Center in November 2019.  Biden noted that the only time he was told to be ready was when President Obama was out of the country, but those were never for health reason or for the expectation that he would have to assume the duties of the President.

“What I’d really want is a crawler, a fact checker at the bottom of the screen,” Biden noted for his wishes during the debates.

“The vast majority of police officers are good, decent women and men,” Biden noted.  “They’re the ones who want to get rid of the bad cops. … Protesting is a right and free speech is a right, but to engage in violence–rioting, looting and burning–is wrong.”

Asked about how he would get parents back to work, Biden referred to his proposal to improve child- and elder-care.  “No one should have to pay more than 7% of their income for child care and be able to go to work.”  CDC should have clear standards to open up daycare or child care centers, which state agencies can use to inspect facilities, Biden said.

Noting that the Obama-Biden administration spent $800 billion to jumpstart the economy after the Great Recession, that led to the longest period of economic growth in the nation’s history, Biden said that republicans are rabid to let the country suffer for the sake of the budget. “To quote my good friend Mitch McConnell:  ‘Let the states go bankrupt.’ ”

Asked on how he would balance the public health needs to control the coronavirus versus the needs of the economy, Biden repeated his statement that no full economic recovery can occur without taking care to control the coronavirus first.

Biden said that the first step would be to implement a mask requirement in public spaces.  “Why do you wear a mask?  To protect your neighbor.  To stop somebody from getting sick and dying.  I call that patriotic,” Biden said.

Biden said that he is a Constitutionalist and would not do anything that is contrary to presidential powers, short of a national mask mandate.  He said he would put pressure on governors, mayors, county executives and business leaders to implement mask mandates as a public safety measure.

When asked by a reporter why he continued to hold rallies in March when he supposedly told Trump that he needed to invoke public health directives, Biden corrected the reporter:  “I said [to Trump] you have to take this seriously.”

Biden said he told Trump that he had to work with China to get information about the coronavirus, and he pushed Trump to invoke the Defense Production Act.

“The thing that I just don’t understand is that, when the things the president says are just simply not true, and when enormous pressure is put on the professional from the CDC and NIH across the board,” Biden asked how do leaders make a convincing and honest plea for people to get a vaccine shot if they can’t trust what comes from the White House.

“We’ve lost so much confidence from the American people in what is said.  This president is said so many things that are just untrue.”  Biden noted that Trump is more concerned with the stock market than with the safety of the American people.