Biden defends his management of COVID, admits regrets in ABC interview

Off the heels of Tuesday’s White House speech about the administration’s COVID response moving forward, an interview with President Biden and ABC’s David Muir aired on Wednesday night.

At one point Muir asked Biden if he was too quick in declaring victory against COVID over the summer. "Let me ask you about what you said on July 4th. I know you remember it well. You told the American people: ‘we’re closer than ever to our independence from a deadly virus.’ Do you think you overpromised?"

Biden’s sidestepped in answering by saying questions like Muir’s are inevitable given the pandemic as a general situation.

"No, we were closer than ever," he replied. "But there’s a lot we don’t know. It’s like I’m sure you’re going to ask me ‘when’s this going to end? How are we going to do this? Are we certain going to be able to overcome?’ The Delta… excuse me the virus... COVID-19."

Biden boiled it down to the challenge between the variants and what scientists can accomplish. "The answer is: the expectation is yes because we have the best scientists in the world we’re moved so rapidly compared to other countries. But we don’t know, we don’t know for certain."

On Wednesday, the FDA approved the usage of a COVID treatment pill from Pfizer to combat the virus after a person already has it. In what seems like a big step forward comes skepticism about what took so long to get here.

"The answer is yeah I wish I had thought about ordering half a billion pills two months ago before COVID hit here," Biden responded.

(The Biden administration and Pfizer announced a finalized deal for ten million orders of PAXLOVID in late November.)

Muir then asked about the timing of the most recent commitments from the White House. "But we’re nearly two years into this pandemic, you’re a year into the presidency… empty shelves and no test kits in some places. Three days before Christmas when it’s so important. Is that good enough?"

"No. Nothing has been good enough," Biden replied. "But look, look where we are. When last Christmas we’re in a situation where we had significantly fewer vaccinated… people vaccinated. Emergency rooms were filled. You had serious back-ups in hospitals that were causing great difficulties."

"We’re in a situation now where we have two-hundred million people fully vaccinated," Biden continued. "Two-hundred million people fully vaccinated, and we’ve had more than that, who have had the one shot… at least one shot, and they’re getting these booster shots as well. So we’ve moved along and we still the CDC is still saying and my… the docs who advise me on this are still saying if you are tested, if you know where you are in terms of having gotten the shots, there’s no reason why you can’t get together with your family and your friends."

On other subjects, Biden reaffirmed his intention to run again in 2024 even if that meant a rematch against former President Trump. He also expressed his personal openness for the continuing January 6th inquiry, no matter how much that runs into the dealings of Trump’s former administration.