Former Obama finance adviser: We haven't heard how Biden would have handled COVID differently

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Peebles: Blaming Trump for pandemic won't resonate with voters Biden and Harris want to attract

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris should be speaking about where they want to take the country instead of immediately going on the attack, former Obama National Finance Committee member Don Peebles says.

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has not yet explained how he would have handled the coronavirus pandemic differently than President Trump, former Obama National Finance Committee member Don Peebles said on Thursday.

“This was something that caught us all by surprise and had a devastating impact on the world and has created a worldwide recession, not just America,” Peebles told "Fox & Friends" on Thursday.

“So I think that there’s an argument to be had that we could have closed it up, closed the country earlier and reacted earlier and then there’s an argument that we didn’t know, but I think that ultimately, the question is, is Biden able to handle it better? What would he have done differently? And that we haven’t heard yet.”

Peebles made the comments one day after Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., made their debut together as running mates in Wilmington, Del. On Tuesday, Biden announced his choice of the California senator to join him on the 2020 Democratic ticket, with Harris vowing to prosecute the political case against the Trump-Pence ticket.

“We need to get to work, pulling this nation out of these crises we find ourselves in. Getting our economy back on track,” Biden said on Wednesday appearing with Harris.

At the event, Harris said that Trump “inherited the longest economic expansion in history from Barack Obama and Joe Biden and then, like everything else he inherited, he ran it straight into the ground.”

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“I’m surprised that the first day out that they’re going out on the attack as opposed to talking about where they want to take the country, which is a better move,” Peebles said.

He went on to say that “trying to blame Donald Trump for a pandemic is not going to resonate with voters, at least the voters that they’re looking to attract.”

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“I think that they need to be talking about how they’re going to build a recovery coming out of the pandemic and I think that that’s what Americans are going to look for, is a president that can lead the economy when it comes out of this pandemic,” he continued.

Peebles said that he doesn’t think “the country is going to blame Donald Trump for the pandemic” adding that some people may, however, “blame him for how it’s been handled, but not blaming him for the pandemic and its impact on the economy.”

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Peebles pointed out that the “first two years of the Trump administration were almost record-setting economic growth and the lowest unemployment numbers for African Americans and for Americans as a whole since we’ve been keeping statistics on unemployment, so we had a very robust economy.”

In September of last year, the unemployment rate dropped to 3.5%, a 50-year low.

Peebles also noted on Thursday that “no one knew the impact” of the coronavirus pandemic.

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“Initially, Trump wanted to close the borders and was criticized for that and then once he ultimately reopened them back because he relented to the criticism, then we started learning more about it [coronavirus] and then he was blamed for keeping the borders open too long and not reacting quick enough,” Peebles said.