Should Joe Biden stay in the basement?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 23 July 2020
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The presidential opposition candidate Joe Biden has barely emerged from his home since America’s lockdown at the end of March. But polls suggest that the low-key strategy is working in his favour – as his rival President Donald Trump comes under increasing pressure over his handling of the coronavirus and a resurgence of racial tension.
With four months to go until the election, is staying in the basement Joe Biden’s best option? What are the risks if he does? And how could Donald Trump turn things around?
Contributors: . Jason Zengerle, writer at large for the New York Times Magazine . Rachel Bitecofer, Senior Fellow at the Niskanen Center and host of the Election Whisperer. . Niambi Carter, Associate Professor of Political Science at Howard University and author of “American While Black”. . Whit Ayres, Republican pollster at North Star Opinion Research.
Presenter: Tanya Beckett Producers: Estelle Doyle and Victoria McCraven Editor: Richard Vadon
(Image: Joe Biden at campaign event, Credit: Leah Mills/Reuters)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the inquiry on the BBC World Service. I'm Tanya Beckett. Each week one question, |
| 0:08.0 | four expert witnesses and an answer. It was a sunny Sunday at the very end of spring in Wilmington, Delaware in the United States. |
| 0:25.0 | A saptagenarian man and his wife emerged from their home where they spent the previous two months working from the basement. They made their way down to a local |
| 0:36.2 | church where they prayed with community leaders. They talked about the nationwide outpouring of |
| 0:42.2 | anger that had followed the death of George Floyd, |
| 0:45.6 | an unarmed black man at the hands of a police officer. |
| 0:52.3 | During the discussions, everyone's mouths and noses were kept covered. |
| 0:57.0 | Outside the doors a pandemic was convulsing the country. |
| 1:01.0 | It had sickened one and a half million people and |
| 1:04.9 | killed more than a hundred thousand. |
| 1:09.4 | The man and his wife were Joe and Jill Biden and the couple were in the midst of a highly charged presidential campaign and yet it was only the second time they'd emerge from their basement in three months to meet |
| 1:26.0 | voters. |
| 1:27.0 | Rival President Trump had accused the Democrats candidate of hiding. He's been in the basement for a long time. I think he's |
| 1:35.5 | really been run beautifully. He's not running his campaign. People are running his |
| 1:40.9 | campaign. And at some point he's going to have to come out for air. |
| 1:46.6 | And yet the polls had turned sharply in Biden's favour. |
| 1:51.0 | So this week on the inquiry we're asking, should Joe Biden stay in the basement? |
| 1:58.0 | Part 1, The Basement. By the time Joe Biden became the candidate for the Democratic Party on April the 8th of this year, the United States had already gone into lockdown. |
| 2:17.0 | At 77, the former Vice President was firmly in a high-risk group and confined himself and his campaign to unseat Donald Trump to his home in Delaware. |
| 2:30.0 | The only people in the house were him and his wife Jill I think two campaign aides |
| 2:37.2 | Our first expert witness is Jason Zengelow writer at large for the New York Times magazine. |
| 2:44.0 | His grandkids live nearby and they would come to the backyard and sit in the backyard and he would stay on the porch and they'd be socially |
... |
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