Who deserves credit? Biden leans into pandemic politics

WASHINGTON (AP) — In President Joe Biden’s war against the coronavirus, former President Donald Trump hardly exists.

The Democratic president ignored Trump in his first prime-time address to the nation, aside from a brief indirect jab. It was the same when Biden kicked off a national tour in Pennsylvania on Tuesday to promote the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. Now, as his administration is on the cusp of delivering on his promise of administering 100 million doses of vaccine in his first 100 days, Biden is in no rush to share the credit.

The truth is that both Biden and Trump deserve some credit, though Biden stands to benefit from being in power during the nation’s emergence from the pandemic. In the president’s telling, the United States’ surging vaccination rate, economic recovery and the hope slowly spreading across the nation belong to him and his party alone.

On Thursday afternoon, Biden took an early victory lap on reaching the vaccination milestone more than a month before he promised, saying the 100 millionth dose would be administered Friday — his 59th day in office.

“One headline simply put it: ‘It won’t be easy.’ Well it wasn’t,” Biden said, taking credit for putting the federal government on a “war footing” after he took office.

The president’s approach represents a determination to shape how voters — and history — will remember the story of America’s comeback from the worst health and economic crises in generations. In the short term, the debate will help decide whether Democrats will continue to control Congress after next year’s midterm elections. And in the longer term, each president’s legacy is at stake.

For now, the fight is framed by conflicting realities.

On the Democratic side, Biden and his allies see a nation still desperate for government intervention. They point to more than 9 million jobs still lost, thousands of Americans still dying of the coronavirus every week, and state and local leaders in both parties seeking help.

Enter Biden’s relief package, which public polling shows has broad support. The package provides checks and tax breaks directly to Americans and will add money to the pandemic fight, as well as help state and municipal governments close budget shortfalls.

On the other side, Republicans largely believe that most Americans are doing just fine after the GOP — under Trump’s leadership — put the country on a path to recovery before Democrats won the White House and both chambers of Congress in January. They note that hundreds of billions of dollars remain unspent from last year’s rescue packages.

In an interview, Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey stopped short of endorsing the call by his Republican Senate colleague Rick Scott of Florida for states to return billions of dollars allocated in Biden’s pandemic-relief plan, which includes $1,400 checks for most Americans. But Toomey described the Democrat-backed package, which polling suggests is overwhelmingly popular, as “an embarrassment.”

“We certainly didn’t need it right now,” the Pennsylvania Republican said of Biden’s American Rescue Plan. ”I have heard from a lot of people receiving the check saying they didn’t need it.”

Toomey also mocked Biden’s attempts to take credit for the pandemic progress, saying, “I suppose roosters take credit for the sunshine sometimes.”

Trump’s response to the virus last year was wildly inconsistent and divisive, but it’s undeniable that the former president’s push for vaccine production, known as Operation Warp Speed, gave Biden something to build on as soon as he took over.

In his early days in the White House, Biden’s team made headlines as they said publicly that he had inherited no plan to combat the pandemic. The White House has since backed off that argument, however, because it’s not technically accurate.

The Biden administration inherited two effective vaccines, with others in the pipeline. And even a much-touted program to distribute vaccines through retail pharmacies has its roots in the last administration.

Even so, since taking over, Biden has overseen a dramatic increase in vaccine distribution and played a more active role in giving states consistent pandemic-related guidance. Late last week, for example, the new president announced that all Americans would be eligible for a vaccine by May 1, a directive meant to help cut through the patchwork of conflicting eligibility requirements across the country.

Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison charged that Trump played down the seriousness of the coronavirus for months, leaving states on their own to address the historic health and economic crises.

“Joe Biden has come in to clean it up, to clean up the mess,” Harrison told The Associated Press. “I have no room for giving Donald Trump any credit. This is a man who couldn’t even say, ‘You need to wear a mask.’ And right now, you see the people who are resisting the…