Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden said Tuesday President Trump has “squandered” the economic expansion created during the Obama-Biden administration, causing an economic recession.
The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee’s comment came after the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Business Cycle Dating Committee noted the U.S. economy peaked in February and has hit a downturn.
Mr. Biden said the president had forgotten about the middle class long before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the nation, causing millions of people to fall unemployed and businesses to be shuttered.
“President Trump cut taxes for big corporations and the richest Americans instead of investing in the middle class. Trump drove manufacturing into a recession across the Midwest. And Trump systematically stacked the deck against working families who were struggling to get ahead,” Mr. Biden said in a press release Tuesday.
He said the president is now “doubling down” on that agenda.
“The president isn’t responsible for the virus. But he is responsible for a completely bungled response that not only cost thousands of lives, but millions more jobs than should have been lost. The ‘unprecedented magnitude’ of the economic hit, and the ‘broad reach’ of it — that’s on Donald Trump,” Mr. Biden added.
