WATCH: Joe Biden Nearly Gives Out His Phone Number on Live TV During Moving Answer on Coronavirus Grief
Former Vice President Joe Biden stopped himself from giving out his personal phone number on live television while discussing grief during the coronavirus pandemic in a moving highlight of CNN’s town hall Friday night.
After an hour in which the former veep took questions from CNN viewers across the country about the Covid-19 crisis and laid out his own vision for managing the catastrophe, host Anderson Cooper asked Biden to talk about the grief that people are experiencing when they’ve lost loved ones to the disease.
“One of the things that’s especially awful about the deaths of people with coronavirus is that they often die alone, without family or friends by their side because of the needs to protect everybody, no one to hold their hand — or family members, at least, holding their hand,” Cooper said. “More than a thousand families in the United States have had to plan funerals that almost no one can attend for the same reasons.”
“I’m wondering what — as we close tonight, what your message is to those families and to all of the country?” Cooper asked Biden, who then delivered a moving reponse that included an offer to reach out personally to those affected.
My message is, God love you. You know, I’ve lost a couple of children. I’ve lost a wife.
And it is incredibly difficult to go through. And it’s harder to go through when you haven’t had an opportunity to be with the person while they’re dying.
My mom, my dad, I was able to be with them and lie in bed with them as they took their last breath. My son, I was able to do that. My deceased wife, I was not able to do that. I was not able — I was not able to be there. And it makes a gigantic difference for people.
And seek help. Seek help afterwards. Seek help. Talk to people who have been through it so they know, they know they can tell you that you can get through it. You really can. It’s possible. But, boy, it is so, so, so hard. And that’s one of the cruelest, cruelest things that’s happening.
A very good friend of ours is her mom’s in a nursing home in Boston. She showed us pictures, she sits outside of the room — sits outside of the room in a chair, outside the window, and just puts her hand on the window so her mom can touch her hand in the window. It’s just this is the human connection is so, so profoundly important.
And when you don’t have it, you’ve got to get help. And, by the way, I’m not going to give my phone. But anyway, those who have been through that, you can contact my campaign. I’m happy to try to talk to you. Not that I’m an expert but just having been there, I’m so sorry for you.
Watch the clip above via CNN.
