‘One year since everything stopped’: How Biden’s primetime speech compared to Trump’s, exactly one year apart

The president memorialises loss and death in a pandemic year that began with his predecessor’s assurance that the risk of infection is ‘very, very low’

President Joe Biden called it the day “everything stopped.”

One year and one day earlier, he won five presidential primary elections. Hours later, on 11 March, 2020, the World Health Organisation’s Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the agency is “deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity, and by the alarming levels of inaction” against the novel coronavirus.

“We have therefore made the assessment that Covid-19 can be characterised as a pandemic,” he said.

“Bottom line,” Dr Anthony Fauci told members of Congress that day, “it’s going to get worse.”

The nation’s leading infectious disease expert told members of the House Oversight Committee on Oversight and Reform that “how much worse we’ll get will depend on our ability to do two things: to contain the influx of people who are infected coming from the outside, and the ability to contain and mitigate within our own country.”

At 8pm, just before tipoff as hundreds of fans waited inside the Chesapeake Energy Arena in Oklahoma City, a member of the Utah Jazz tested positive for coronavirus, cancelling the game against the Thunder. The NBA abruptly suspended its entire season that night.

At 3.18pm, then-president Donald Trump said on Twitter: “I am fully prepared to use the full power of the Federal Government to deal with our current challenge of the CoronaVirus”

Several hours later, before his second-ever address to the nation from behind the desk in the Oval Office, a C-SPAN broadcast captured his voice: “Oh f***”.

“I got a pen mark,” he said. “Anybody got any white stuff?”

At 9.02pm, he began his remarks:

“My fellow Americans, tonight I want to speak with you about our nation’s unprecedented response to the coronavirus outbreak that started in China and is now spreading throughout the world.”

Prime-time speeches from two presidents, confronting the same crisis, with strikingly different messages of hope and optimism – one for a nation bracing for the unknown while the other recovers from what has become a familiar tragedy – bookended a harrowing year that followed.

One invoked an arrogant invincibility in the face of a worsening crisis, the other a reminder of the precious lives and memories lost after an immense period of death and loneliness; one now serves as a grim reminder of the consequences of failed promises, the other a response to them.

In a 10-minutes address on 11 March, 2020, Mr Trump – seated inside the Oval Office – listed his administration’s early efforts to combat the pandemic, including “suspending all travel from Europe to the United States for the next 30 days” and several emergency financial support measures. And, drawing on what would be central themes in his response, he blamed other governments for the crisis.

Mr Trump lauded his “early, intense action” to ban all travel from China and boasted that the US has “fewer cases than in Europe”.

He told “the vast majority of Americans” that their “risk is very, very low” and urged people to “follow the guidelines of your local officials who are working closely with our federal health experts” – advice he would repeatedly undermine over the next several months.

Hours after lashing out at his political opponents on Twitter, he made his pitch for unity in the face of a growing crisis: “We are all in this together, stop the partisanship and unify together as one nation and one family.”

“Our future remains brighter than anyone can imagine,” he said in his closing remarks. “Acting with compassion and love, we will heal the sick, care for those in need, help our fellow citizens and emerge from this challenge stronger and more unified than ever before.”

In the year that followed, the nation’s death toll eclipsed 520,000 lives lost to the disease.

In his first prime-time address within his first 50 days in office, Mr Biden walked to a lectern, surrounded by flags, and returned to themes of shared responsibility, unity, compassion and love – this time armed with an acknowledgment, and an understanding, of the death and loss that followed Mr Trump’s remarks, “one year since everything stopped,” he said.

“A year ago we were hit with a virus that was met with silence and spread unchecked, denials for days, weeks, then months, that led to more deaths, more infections, more stress, and more loneliness,” he said.

His remarks followed his signing of a $1.9 trillion relief package, reviving weekly unemployment aid, sending $1,400 direct payments to millions of Americans, and funnelling billions of dollars into vaccination efforts, schools, small businesses, healthcare and other aid.

In his 23-minute address, he acknowledged the toll on the nation’s psyche and the “collective sacrifice” shared among Americans in a “year filled with the loss of life and loss of living for all of us,” including the “longest walk any parent can make” to their child’s bedroom to tell them they lost their job, or facing eviction, hunger, homelessness, “loss of control, loss of hope.”

But “finding light in the darkness is a very American thing to do,” he said. “It might be the most American thing we do.”

At one point, he leaned into the lectern in front of him, promising he will use “every power I have as president to get the job done” to combat the crisis.

“I will not relent until we beat this virus,” he said. “But I need you, I need every American to do their part. That’s not hyperbole.”

As he closed, he said: “Over a year ago, no one could have imagined what we would go through. And now we’re coming through it. It’s shared experience that binds us a nation. We are bound by the loss and pain … and the hope and possibilities in the days in front of us.”