Biden Attacks Trump, Treating Him as De Facto US Republican Nominee
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – US President Joe Biden directly targeted Republican frontrunner Donald Trump at a campaign event Tuesday, treating him as the de facto nominee and warning of the consequences for voters if his political rival is returned to the White House.
“Donald Trump and extreme MAGA Republicans are determined to destroy American democracy,” Biden said at a fundraiser in Colorado. “The choice facing us could not be more stark,” Bloomberg reported.
Biden repeatedly assailed Trump over a number of policies, including his calls to repeal Obamacare and his support for abortion restrictions — as well as his political rhetoric.
“If Trump gets his way, it’s all gone,” Biden said about the health care benefits from Obamacare, seizing on Trump’s threat to undo the Affordable Care Act, as the law is formally known.
Biden noted Republicans had repeatedly failed to repeal it when they controlled both chambers of Congress and said Trump’s actions would throw 40 million Americans off health coverage they obtained under the law.
The US president also hit Trump over the slew of restrictions on abortion that Republican-led states instituted after the Supreme Court’s ruling last year, saying his rival was “running for president bragging he killed Roe v. Wade.”
“The only reason a fundamental right has been stripped away from the American people is Donald Trump,” Biden said.
With the Iowa caucuses less than two months away, Trump holds a wide lead over the rest of the GOP field. Biden has increasingly stepped up his attacks on Trump in recent weeks, pivoting to the former president who polls show leading him.
A national survey of registered voters released by Emerson College last week gave Trump, the GOP primary frontrunner, a 47% to 43% edge in a hypothetical matchup with Biden. The president’s aides have dismissed polls showing him trailing Trump, saying voters will rally to Biden in a two-man race.
In abortion and Obamacare, Biden is seizing on two issues where Democrats believe they have an advantage.
State level elections earlier this month delivered a string of wins for Democrats, especially in contests where Republicans were pushing tighter abortion restrictions. Biden noted that Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, seen as a potential presidential contender, “got trounced” in his bid to win the GOP a majority in both chambers of the state legislature. In Ohio, voters also backed a constitutional amendment that would ensure access to abortion.
Obamacare as well poses a challenge for Republicans with polls showing the health-care law broadly popular with voters. Earlier Tuesday, Biden campaign surrogates, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi blasted Trump’s push to overturn the law.
Biden has repeatedly hit Trump over his political rhetoric and on Tuesday again criticized his predecessor for recent comments comparing his political rivals to “vermin,” saying it invoked language heard in Nazi Germany in the 1930s.