CLEVELAND, Ohio- President Joe Biden visited Cleveland on Thursday for a speech on the economy at Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) metro- campus near the downtown area, his second trip to Ohio since assuming office as president in January and his second visit to the largely Black major American city of Cleveland since last year’s first presidential debate.

He also spoke on the coronavirus pandemic, which has claimed the lives of nearly 600,000 Americans since it hit the U.S. with a vengeance in March of 2020.

Prior to speaking at the manufacturing center on campus, he took a tour of Tri-C.

Among fellow Democrats on hand to hear the president's speech on his economic policies and his 'Blue-collar Blueprint for America' were Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley, one of less than a handful of announced candidates for Ohio governor in 2022, and Democratic Congressman Tim Ryan of Niles, a former presidential candidate who will make a bid next year for the U.S. senate seat currently held by Rob Portman, a Cincinnati Republican who is not seeking reelection and will retire from Congress in 2022.

"Dr Johnson and everyone at Cuyahoga Community College thank you for being here and having me here," Biden said in opening his remarks.

He briefly mentioned U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Marcia L. Fudge, who resigned from Congress in March to become a part of the president's cabinet, her largely Black 11th congressional district seat of which is up for grabs via an Aug 3 special primary election and a Nov. 2 general election.

A former U.S. senator and vice president under former president Barack Obama, the nation's first Black president, Biden said that there is "no chance for the economy to come back unless we beat the pandemic."

He said that since he took office in January COVID-19 cases are down 83 percent and deaths are down 85 percent.

"We have turned the tide on a once- in-a-century pandemic," Biden said, adding that trickle down economics never work.

"I believe this is our moment to build an economy from the bottom up and the middle out," said Biden.

The president said unemployment is down and the economy has added 1.5 million jobs, and he mocked Congressional Republicans saying they voted against the COVID-19 recovery plan that they are now promoting through a hypocritical plan of their own.

He called for increased spending on education, infrastructure and research.

Cleveland is one of some 32 diverse municipalities in the 11th congressional district, which also includes a majority Black pocket of Akron and select suburbs of Cuyahoga and Summit Counties.

It is a Democratic stronghold and so is the county it sits in, Cuyahoga County, a 29 percent Black county, and the second largest of Ohio's 88 counties, behind Franklin County, which includes Columbus, the state capital and the state's largest city by population.

And all of the 17 members of Cleveland City Council are Democrats as is Mayor Frank Jackson, the city's four-term Black mayor, a relatively popular mayor who has opted not to seek reelection this year to an unprecedented fifth term.

Then the Democratic nominee, Biden visited Cleveland last September for the first presidential debate with then-president Donald Trump, whom he unseated last November during a contentious election.

He visited Ohio State University's  Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute in March of this year, but as president.

The president and members of his promotion team are visiting select cities nationwide as part of his “Getting America Back on Track" tour, a duel effort to promote his  American Rescue Plan and an infrastructure bill that Congressional Democrats support that is part of an ambitious $7 trillion economic agenda that he wants a divided Congress to approve.

The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, also called the COVID-19 Stimulus Package or American Rescue Plan, is Biden's $1.9 trillion economic stimulus bill, a bill passed by Congress in March in response to the economic, physical and other effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has claimed the lives of over a half million Americans, and even more worldwide.

First proposed in January of this year, The American Rescue Plan builds upon many of the measures in the CARES Act from March 2020 and in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, from December.

Republicans have countered Biden's infrastructure plan and have offered one of their own to the tune of $928 billion, down from the $7 trillion the president wants.