Statement by Vice President Joe Biden on 9 Million Reported COVID-19 Cases in the United States

More than 9 million cases of COVID-19 have been now confirmed in the United States -- 20 percent of the world's reported caseload -- and the virus is surging in nearly every state. More than 228,000 Americans have lost their lives. It is as severe an indictment of a president's record as one can possibly imagine, and it is utterly disqualifying. Anyone who is responsible for plunging and ensnaring America in this crisis -- anyone who could do so without an ounce of shame or a shred of empathy -- should not be president.

As deeply worrying as the trendlines are right now across the country, the terrifying truth is that the situation could get still markedly worse for Americans, as Donald Trump and his fellow Republicans move within striking distance of destroying the Affordable Care Act once and for all.

But they underestimate the American people. For more than eight months, in the absence of any leadership from Trump, the American people have stepped up to care and look out for one another, as nurses and fire-fighters, doctors and police officers, farmworkers and grocers, researchers and community volunteers. All doing for our country what our president could not, did not, and would not. As we square our shoulders, facing into the headwinds of a challenging winter, we will do what America has always done -- come together and meet the challenge with compassion, courage, determination and with a president who will always be in their corner, instead of turning his back.