Joe Biden at a virtual event. Photo: Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Joe Biden's campaign ties President Trump's coronavirus response to the U.S. economic downturn and death toll in a new digital ad previewed by Axios.
What they're saying: "Trump didn't want to upset the markets," the narrator says, adding, "Trump didn't build a great economy. His failure to lead destroyed one."
- The ad, released Monday, will run statewide on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Florida, North Carolina and Arizona, per the campaign.
Why it matters: The Biden team plans to take on Trump over the economy, health care and China.
- Just last week, Biden delivered a speech on the state of the economy across NowThis platforms, outlining the central economic arguments his campaign will use against Trump.
- "We have an economic crisis because we have a public health crisis, and we have a public health crisis because he failed to act," Andrew Bates, the Biden campaign's rapid response director, told Axios.
The other side: The Trump campaign called the ad's premise a "factually inaccurate attempt to be relevant by Joe Biden" and said the president has been focused on protecting Americans' safety and the economy.
- "It’s a fact that the hottest economy anyone had ever seen was artificially interrupted by the coronavirus," a spokesperson said.
The big picture: Biden is seeking to use digital ads to get his message out to voters as he competes with the president's bully pulpit.
Go deeper: Democrats lay out rebuttal to Trump attacks on Biden over China