Joe Biden spent the majority of his campaign in his basement and twice on the debate stage with then-President Donald Trump talking about his plans to battle COVID-19.

Biden has said all along to listen to the science, which we believe is a wise idea. He has even tried since he became president to take a lot of credit for the vaccine rollout. While we believe he does deserve some credit for the rollout, so does Trump, who spent nearly a year dealing with this virus.

For those who follow politics closely, Biden has talked a big game on fighting COVID-19, but his rhetoric really isn’t backed up by his actions.

It has recently become public knowledge that neither Biden nor Vice President Kamala Harris are holding the weekly calls with all 50 governors as was done under the Trump administration on the issue of COVID-19.

Every Tuesday, usually at 11 a.m. EST, all 50 governors dial in to the same conference call to coordinate federal and state responses to the coronavirus crisis. Until this past January, the governors heard each time from then-Vice President Mike Pence, who served as head of the White House COVID task force. Trump dropped by from time to time.

The calls have continued under the current administration but without Biden. Harris has only been on one, but that was for about five minutes and she didn’t take any questions.

The Trump White House hosted 40 COVID conference calls. Pence led 39 of them. Trump participated in eight.

Biden is now president. We understand he has a lot of other issues to deal with, but if his predecessor could take time to get on the phone with our nation’s governors and the former vice president could as well, what makes Biden any different?

The answer is very simple, and that is there is a double standard here.

Biden, who often says he’s going to get in trouble for answering questions from the press, wants Americans to follow his orders, but his lack of communication with our nation’s governors shows someone who is not a true leader.

And where is the mainstream media on this story? Had Trump or Pence been missing in action on these calls with our nation’s governors. the mainstream media would’ve had a field day.

Now, sadly, the mainstream media won’t touch the story because they’re in Biden’s pocket.

One of the first lessons of Journalism 101 is to not let a source dictate what you report. We suppose the majority of the mainstream media who attended journalism school must have slept through this class given their tone deafness to the story.

Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts summed up the Biden administration’s lack of action on this matter very well when he said: “It really is not the type of bipartisan partnership that the president promised when he came into office in his inaugural address. It really is much more of a top-down, we-are-going-to-do-what-we-are-going-to-do thought process.”

Biden promised a transparent and bipartisan government, but in his first 100 days in office we have seen little of that. If he is too busy, we get it, but put Harris on the phone with our nation’s governors to keep the response focused and coordinated.

It’s the right thing to do, and it’s well past time. Let’s hope these calls get the attention they deserve and resume in a timely manner.