Pro-Biden super PAC uses Trump’s coronavirus comments against him

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Trump, Biden lay out dueling agendas for next White House term

Kristin Fisher reports from the White House with what's in the plans.

As new cases of the coronavirus surge in much of the nation, the top super PAC backing presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is going up in crucial general election battleground states with two news TV spots – one of which targets President Trump for his handling of the pandemic.

The spot by Priorities USA, which was shared first with Fox News, uses video clips of the president downplaying the severity of the outbreak during news conferences and interviews the past couple months.

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“We have it totally under control,” Trump says in one clip. “The risk to the American people remains very low,” he adds in another.

“We’re just about number one in the world in terms of success,” the president declares in a different clip. “I said it’s going away and it is going away.”

As the soundbites of the president play in the ad, a moving line chart showing the rise of new cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. compared with other nations is also seen on screen.

The commercial ends with the words “Donald Trump is failing America.”

Word of the new ad – which Priorities USA says will start running on Thursday on broadcast and cable TV in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Arizona – comes as the number of new coronavirus cases in the country closes in on 3.4 million people – and the domestic death toll from the pandemic topping 135,000.

Priorities USA Chairman Guy Cecil claimed in a statement that “Donald Trump is lying and deflecting in order to avoid any accountability for the thousands of lives that could have been saved had his administration acted with a shred of competence.” And he vowed that “we will not allow his campaign of misinformation to go unchecked.”

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Since March, the president, his administration and his reelection campaign have touted the federal government’s response to the pandemic.

"We've done a good job. I think we are going to be in two, three, four weeks ... I think we're going to be in very good shape," the president said in an interview last week with Gray Television. He described the recent spikes in new coronavirus cases as “fires” that would be put out.

In an interview Friday on Fox News' "Hannity," the president declared "we are doing a great job" in battling the pandemic.

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And last week the president tweeted “BREAKING NEWS: The Mortality Rate for the China Virus in the U.S. is just about the LOWEST IN THE WORLD! Also, Deaths in the U.S. are way down, a tenfold decrease since the Pandemic height (and, our Economy is coming back strong!).”

Most national polling indicates broad disapproval of how the president is handling the coronavirus crisis. But the president and his campaign have consistently blasted public opinion polling as flawed and charge the surveys under-sample Republican voters.

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The second new ad from Priorities USA points to the pandemic and the resulting economic slide and charges that the president’s “lies and attacks are making each crisis worse. He’s dangerous, out of control. America, we deserve a president who puts us first.”

The commercial uses clips of Biden from his speeches, saying, “This is a battle for the soul of the United States of America. Winning means uniting America, not sowing more division and anger. There’s nothing beyond our capacity if we do it together.”

The PAC says its new spots are part of its weekly $2 million ad buys on TV and digital in the key battleground states. The group says that since March, when Biden emerged during the primary calendar as the likely presumptive Democratic nominee, it has spent roughly $24 million to run ads targeting the president and boosting Biden. Priorities USA says it is committed to spending more than $200 million this election cycle to defeat Trump.