Doocy Grills Biden On His Promise To ‘Shut Down The Virus’

On Friday, President Biden was questioned about a recent op-ed written under his name in USA Today in which he laid out a plan to “beat [COVID-19] back.”

The op-ed said, “We are going to fight COVID-19 not with shutdowns or lockdowns – but with more widespread vaccinations, boosters, testing and more. We will beat it back with science and speed, not chaos and confusion – just as we did in the spring and again with the more powerful delta variant in the summer and fall.”

Reporters noted that the language appears to be a shift in the goalposts after Biden repeatedly promised to “shut down the virus” during his presidential campaign last year.

“So on COVID policy, it seems like the administration is starting to soften some of the language,” Fox News reporter Peter Doocy said. “There’s this new op-ed where you talk about COVID, ‘We are going to beat it back.’ Are you no longer going to ‘shut it down?’”

“We got to beat it back before we shut it down,” Biden responded. “Look, it’s going to take time worldwide. In order to beat COVID, we have to shut it down worldwide. In the United States of America. We’re doing everything that needs to be done to take care of the American people within our borders.”

?? Doocy asks Biden: "Are you no longer going to shut the virus down?"

Biden: "We've gotta beat it back before we shut it down…We've gotta shut it down worldwide."

If that's not moving the goalposts, I don't know what is. pic.twitter.com/tvo7ZivdWx

— John Cooper (@thejcoop) December 3, 2021

As Fox News reported, “Biden routinely promised on the campaign trail that he would ‘shut down’ the virus if elected. Biden regularly asserted that it was former President Trump’s ‘ineptitude’ that ‘caused the country to have to shut down in large part,’ and assured voters that his administration would take care of the pandemic more efficiently.”

However, more than 350,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 since President Biden’s inauguration day – far more than the number under the Trump administration – and even Biden is warning that COVID-19 numbers are about to surge again.

“Experts say that COVID-19 cases will continue to rise in the weeks ahead this winter, and that we will see more omicron cases here in the United States in the days, weeks and months ahead,” Biden’s USA Today op-ed said. “I know that Americans are exhausted from COVID-19 and want to know when it will end, and the new variant is adding to that unease.”