American President Joe Biden crushed his rival Donald Trump this Friday, January 5, in a major speech with which he hopes to give momentum to his campaign for the November presidential election.
Published on: June 1, 2024 – 00:03
3 mins
The place was symbolic. Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, is where George Washington, the future first president of the United States, gathered the American forces that fought the British Empire nearly 250 years ago. That's why, from this historic site of the American Revolutionary War, Joe Biden began to destroy his rival Donald Trump in a speech that he hopes will be crucial to the rest of his campaign.
The former tenant of the White House and the Republicans' big favorite for the presidential election in November was “willing to sacrifice our democracy in order to gain power,” said the Democratic president. “He's talking about poisoning the blood of Americans, using the exact same language that was used in Nazi Germany,” continued Joe Biden, 81, who is at or slightly behind Donald Trump in the latest polls .
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The president was scheduled to give his speech this Saturday, three years later to the day the attack on the Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump who tried to prevent the confirmation of Joe Biden's victory, but the date was brought forward due to a storm forecast. The attack on the Capitol remains controversial in the United States: A quarter of Americans believe, without evidence, that the FBI was behind it, according to a Washington Post and University of Maryland poll released this week.
“Trump and his MAGA supporters (“Make America Great Again,” the Republican billionaire’s flagship slogan, NLDR) not only condone political violence, they laugh at it,” denounced Joe Biden. A Trump spokesman, Steven Cheung, immediately responded that Biden was “the real threat to democracy.”
A difficult start to the campaign
This desire to speed up Joe Biden's campaign comes amid criticism from some Democrats who believe it started too slowly. The president failed to convince voters that despite better-than-expected jobs numbers Friday, the economy was recovering and prices remained “still too high for too many Americans,” he said, he admitted in a news release.
Other thorns in the Democrat's side include immigration and the Mexican border conundrum, support for Israel's war against Hamas that divides his party, or even Congress blocking his request for additional funding from Ukraine. Joe Biden's refusal to mention Donald Trump's numerous legal cases, lest he appear to have influence over the justice system, also deprived him of one of his most important weapons against the Republican billionaire.
But Joe Biden's first flaw remains his age. His few slip-ups and speech errors are scrutinized closely. He has the worst popularity rating for an incumbent president in the month of December before an election.
Joe Biden's first campaign clip, released on Thursday and airing for the first time on television on Saturday, warns of the “extreme” threat to democracy by broadcasting images of the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. “It was a terrible thing “Look,” White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters on Thursday. “The President will continue to speak out and speak out on this. »
(With AFP)