Trump campaign aide Erin Perrine on Monday suggested that President Donald Trump is a better leader than Democratic candidate Joe Biden because he has the “firsthand experience” of being infected with COVID-19.
While speaking to Fox News host Sandra Smith, Perrine pointed to Trump’s joyride around Walter Reed Medical Center to wave at supporters as evidence of him continuing with a presidential schedule, which she said was “more rigorous” than Joe Biden’s daily activities.
Smith wondered if the global pandemic will take the forefront in Trump’s campaign now that the president has personally been infected with the disease.
“Firsthand experience is always going to change how someone relates to something that’s been happening,” Perrine opined. “The president has coronavirus right now, he is battling it head-on, as toughly, as only President Trump can. And of course that’s going to change the way that he speaks of it because it will be a firsthand experience.”
Smith interrupted to observe that the president’s campaign has not focused on COVID-19 in the past.
“It’s been law and order and it’s been the economy,” Smith said. “Does this become a key issue in the campaign?”
“He’s talked about it all,” Perrine replied. “And listen, he has experience as commander-in-chief, he has experience as a businessman, he has experience — now — fighting the coronavirus as an individual. Those firsthand experiences, Joe Biden, he doesn’t have those.”
“Those firsthand experiences are what are going to get President Trump four more years,” she added. “So of course he talks about it differently now that he has lived through it.”
