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AFP/Getty Images Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders greet each other with an elbow bump in a CNN Washington Bureau studio DC on Sunday.
Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders each said Sunday night they would deploy the U.S. military to help address the coronavirus outbreak, as the Democratic presidential hopefuls debated in Washington.
The Biden-Sanders debate was held with no audience members present, one of several campaign events upended by the spread of the virus.
Sanders called the pandemic a “national emergency,” and said “I think we use all of the tools that make sense.”
Biden said he would call on the military “now,” saying soldiers could build hospitals.
Both candidates have offered plans to address the pandemic, and broadly agreed that health care for it should be provided free. But the debate highlighted their different platforms, with Sanders highlighting his traditional pitch to address income inequality and Biden saying he wanted to focus on the crisis at hand.
The coronavirus won’t be solved “by a change in tax policy now, it’s not going to be solved by changing how we deal with health care,” Biden said.
The debate came hours after the Federal Reserve announced a surprise interest-rate cut and implemented a bond-buying program, known as quantitative easing, of at least $700 billion.
U.S. stock futures YM00, -4.56% , meanwhile, plummeted in the wake of the Fed’s action.
Read: Fed, not waiting until meeting, slashes rates to zero and restarts QE.
