Donald Trump’s flat, shaky, and falsehood-filled national address from the Oval Office displayed a frightening vacuum of national leadership — which his Democratic rival Joe Biden seized on Thursday afternoon. With his experience in handling earlier pandemics as vice president, Biden swiftly pulled together a real plan for addressing the medical, social, and economic effects of coronavirus as it spreads across the country and the world.

At this critical moment, Biden showed that he is what Trump is not: a plausible president for a nation that desperately needs one.