U.S. President Joe Biden launched a pointed attack against his possible Republican challenger for the upcoming presidential election, Donald Trump, accusing him of threatening democracy and adopting "Nazi" rhetoric. The former President countered by blaming Biden for America's mismanagement.
In an impassioned speech delivered last Friday evening in the Blue Bell suburb near Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, Biden commemorated the third anniversary of the Capitol assault events that took place on January 6th, 2021. He accused Trump and his supporters of perpetuating political violence, warning Americans of the threat he believes the former president poses to the United States.
As Biden addressed his supporters from a historic site that was a key encampment during the Revolutionary War, the former President was in Iowa, where he responded to the accusations leveled against him.
At his first electoral rally of the new year, President Biden (age 81) alleged that his potential rival in the coming November elections was resorting to Nazi discourse, asserting that Trump "speaks of American blood being poisoned, using precisely the same rhetoric that was employed in Nazi Germany."
Biden further stated, "Trump and his supporters, who champion the slogan 'Make America Great Again,' not only endorse political violence, but they also trivialize it as a subject of mockery," considering that the former president is willing to sacrifice American democracy for the sake of gaining power.
Biden extensively discussed the Capitol breach incident, contending that in the approaching presidential elections, Americans will have to choose between a man "obsessed with the past" and his own interests, alluding to Trump, and another whose sole concern lies with "America" and "the future." He described the fight for democracy as a "sacred cause."
Trump accused Biden of failing to manage the country (Agence France-Presse).
Trump's Retort
In Sioux City, Iowa, the former American President Donald Trump delivered a speech in front of his supporters, painting a bleak picture of the state of the United States under Joe Biden's leadership, while launching an attack on the current president and Republican competitor Nikki Haley.
Trump described America under Biden's rule as a "weak nation" suffering from "terrorists" and an influx of immigrants, in his words.
The potential Republican candidate for the next American presidential elections labeled President Joe Biden as "a fraud," deriding his speech in Pennsylvania as pitiful, saying, "Biden's record is nothing but a continuous chain of weakness, incompetence, corruption, and failure."
Additionally, Trump's spokesperson claimed that Biden himself was the real threat to democracy, accusing him of targeting his political rival and interfering with the elections.
Trump is holding a second electoral rally today, Saturday, in Iowa ahead of the Republican Party's primary elections set to take place mid-January.
Recent public opinion polls showed the former president leading over the current one, with Biden reportedly having the lowest approval rating for an incumbent president, less than a year before presidential elections.
According to the French Press Agency, William Galston, a scholar at the Brookings Institution, commented, "If the election were held tomorrow, President Joe Biden would lose."
It's noteworthy that Trump faces criminal charges in various cases, and states such as Maine and Colorado have announced barring him from competing in the Republican primaries for the presidential elections of 2024.
