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What Was Clinton Thinking With This Pandemic Claim About Biden?

During the third night of the Democratic National Convention, former President Bill Clinton took to the stage to deliver a nearly 30-minute speech that praised President Joe Biden and made the case for Vice President Kamala Harris as the party’s presidential nominee. His speech was full of several eyebrow-raising lines, however, including that Biden “voluntarily gave up political power,” ignoring the fact that he was forced out, with Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) playing a starring role in the ouster. But Clinton had another whopper of a claim at the start of his speech. 

“I do want to say one word about President Biden,” Clinton said. “Remember, he had an improbable turn that made him president, and we were in the middle of a pandemic and an economic crash. He healed our sick and put the rest of us back to work.” 

While Biden ran on shutting down the virus—not the country—cases and deaths soared on his watch. On the day Trump left office, there were 424,325 COVID deaths. By Sept. 1, 2022, Biden had more than 617,000 COVID deaths on his watch. By his own standard, he shouldn’t have been president anymore. His solutions involved vaccine mandates, forcing people—including young children—to mask-up, closures, and massive spending.

What was Clinton thinking?