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Good morning and welcome to On Politics, a daily political analysis of the 2020 elections based on reporting by New York Times journalists.
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President Trump during the daily coronavirus briefing at the White House on Monday.
Klobuchar, whose husband has struggled with the virus, sits down for a chat with Biden.
Amy Klobuchar, a Democratic senator from Minnesota and a potential vice-presidential pick for Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, joined Biden on his podcast for a wide-ranging conversation that quickly took on a strikingly personal tone.
At a time when many voters are more focused on their own vulnerability than on the politics of a general election, Klobuchar spoke to Biden about her husband’s battle with the coronavirus, though he is now on the mend. Speaking on Monday’s episode of the podcast, “Here’s the Deal,” she called it “the most lonely, horrific disease.”
Biden, whose first wife and daughter died in a car crash and whose son Beau died of brain cancer in 2015, has sought to use his personal experiences with grief to connect with struggling voters. That goal has been made more difficult these days by social distancing, and by the fact that Trump enjoys the bully pulpit of the presidency amid the crisis.
Klobuchar suggested that Biden’s “empathy” was a critical factor in her decision to support him, a choice that helped put wind in his sails on the eve of Super Tuesday. And she previewed a contrast Democrats are hoping to draw with Trump over matters of character.
“That sense that you have, which has marked your whole life from your own losses, of empathy, is something that we are missing right now in the White House,” Klobuchar said.
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