The Democratic Presidential candidate answered Donald Trump accusations and one upped him on the cause of racial violence in American these days and the protests against it…
Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Monday issued a forceful rebuttal to President Trump’s claim that the former vice president would preside over a nation overwhelmed by disorder and lawlessness, asserting that it was Mr. Trump who had made the country unsafe through his erratic and incendiary governing style.
Mr. Biden condemned the violence that has occasionally erupted amid largely peaceful protests over racial injustice, and noted that the chaos was occurring on the president’s watch. He said Mr. Trump had made things worse by stoking division amid a national outcry over racism and police brutality.
“Does anyone believe there will be less violence in America if Donald Trump is re-elected?” he said. “We need justice in America. We need safety in America. We’re facing multiple crises — crises that, under Donald Trump, have kept multiplying.”
Mr. Biden, the Democratic nominee for president, also pressed a broader argument that the president was endangering Americans with his response to the public health and economic challenges the country confronts.
The address was Mr. Biden’s most prominent effort yet to deflect the criticism that Mr. Trump and Republicans leveled against him at their convention last week, when they distorted his record on crime and policing. And in a fusillade of tweets over the last 48 hours the president suggested Mr. Biden was tolerant of “Anarchists, Thugs & Agitators.”
Speaking at the site of a converted steel mill in Pittsburgh with no audience, in a rare campaign appearance outside eastern Pennsylvania or his home state of Delaware, Mr. Biden rejected the suggestion that lawlessness would go unchecked under his leadership. “Ask yourself: Do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters?” Mr. Biden, 77, said. “Really? I want a safe America. Safe from Covid, safe from crime and looting, safe from racially motivated violence, safe from bad cops. Let me be crystal clear: safe from four more years of Donald Trump.”
The former vice president sought to refocus the spotlight on Mr. Trump and make the election a referendum on the president’s character and his stewardship of the pandemic. He cast Mr. Trump as a destabilizing force who had exacerbated the most urgent problems facing the nation, from the public health crisis, international affairs and unemployment to issues around police brutality, white supremacy and racism.
He repeatedly instructed voters to ignore Mr. Trump’s attempts to transfer responsibility to Democrats for the problems unfolding under his administration. “He keeps telling us if he was president you’d feel safe,” Mr. Biden said. “Well, he is president, whether he knows it or not.”….
image…New York Times
Van Jones and 14 others follow
Dan Rather
@DanRather
·
I remember when George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door at the University of Alabama to bar entry to Black students. I remember when the University of Alabama had a football team that was all white. This strikes me as significant.
Quote Tweet
Simone Eli
@SimoneEli_TV
Powerful image as Nick Saban leads the Alabama football team on a march for social justice. #RollTide