- Trump had a “cordial conversation” with Biden in April 2020 about the fight against COVID, Kellyanne Conway wrote in her new book.
- “Biden was especially committed,” he wrote, adding that Trump said, “Everyone is wrong. He hasn’t lost it.”
- The call came after Conway asked on television why Biden did not offer his support, he wrote.
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During the 2020 presidential campaign, then-President Donald Trump attacked now-President Joe Biden for his age, called him “Sleepy Joe,” and suggested he had dementia.
But Trump had a different impression after a call with Biden in April 2020 on the fight against COVID, according to former Trump chief adviser Kellyanne Conway.
“It was a cordial conversation, which I witnessed, and Biden was especially engaged,” Conway wrote in “Here’s the Agreement: A Memory,” published Tuesday. “So much so that after the call, President Trump looked at me and, to my surprise, said, ‘Everyone is wrong. He hasn’t lost it.’
The 10- or 15-minute conversation came after Conway called Biden on television to criticize the Trump administration instead of offering advice on what the Obama administration did and was effective. He asked why Biden did not call Trump’s White House and offer no support.
Biden made the most of the conversation during the call, Conway wrote.
“He had prepared, perhaps practiced his tone, as if a Disney World animatronic had been activated,” he wrote.
Biden suggested four measures to combat COVID, he wrote, but every idea was “already under development for weeks”, except for Biden’s suggestion to open a new period of enrollment in the Affordable Care Act. The Trump administration had decided to cover all costs for testing and treatment of COVID-19 for up to 90 days instead of reopening enrollment, he wrote.
“Biden was clear and went to the point,” Conway wrote. “The stumbling blocks and messes we saw on TV weren’t so obvious on the phone, but they would be back soon enough. Imagine if Trump had fallen down the stairs of Air Force One several times in a matter of seconds, as he did. Biden! That day, Biden got to do what he hadn’t done lately: offer his advice instead of attacking the president. “
At the time, Trump was the oldest person elected president. Now, that distinction goes to Biden, who at 79 is only about four years older than Trump.