Trump takes aim at Biden as he accepts Republican nomination for presidency
US President Donald Trump delivered a scathing attack on Democrat Joe Biden, accusing him of “destroying” jobs and placating America’s enemies, as he accepted the Republican Party’s nomination to seek a second term.
Fiercely defending his stewardship of a nation buffeted by historic crises, he appealed to voters ahead of an election he said would either preserve or destroy the “American way of life”.
Speaking from the South Lawn of the White House, Mr Trump cast himself as an insurgent rather than the incumbent he is, railing against Mr Biden as eminence of “the failed political class”.
He blamed the former vice president and his Democratic Party for America’s chronic socioeconomic problems as well as for the anger and unrest coursing through the country today.
“This is the most important election in the history of our country,” Mr Trump said. “This election will decide whether we save the American Dream or whether we allow a socialist agenda to demolish our cherished destiny.”
He added: “Your vote will decide whether we protect law-abiding Americans or whether we give free rein to violent anarchists, agitators and criminals who threaten our citizens. And this election will decide whether we will defend the American way of life or whether we allow a radical movement to completely dismantle and destroy it.”
Mr Trump’s speech capped the four-day quasi-virtual Republican National Convention and was delivered against a remarkable and unprecedented tableau — “the People’s House” transformed for an evening into a campaign rally site.
Mr Trump spoke
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a red-carpeted stage adorned with American flags and bookended by massive campaign signage, with the White House’s grand portico illuminated against the night sky as his backdrop. After his 70-minute speech, among the longest acceptance speeches in history, fireworks exploded over the National Mall, some of the blasts bearing the president’s name, T-R-U-M-P.
And as the coronavirus pandemic still rages coast to coast, an estimated 1,500 guests gathered on the South Lawn flouting social distancing recommendations and mostly forgoing face masks - exemplifying the convention’s aim to falsely portray the virus as fading away.
The president punctuated his party’s dark, dystopian warnings that Biden is beholden to the farleft wing of the Democratic Party - “a Trojan horse for socialism,” he said - and, if elected, would transform America’s democracy into something dangerous and sinister.
“Joe Biden is not the saviour of America’s soul; he is the destroyer of America’s jobs - and, if given the chance, he will be the destroyer of American greatness,” Mr Trump said.
Later, invoking Biden’s two terms as vice president and nearly four decades in the Senate, Mr Trump added: “We have spent the last four years reversing the damage Joe Biden inflicted over the last 47 years. Mr Biden’s record is a shameful roll call of the most catastrophic betrayals and blunders in our lifetime. He has spent his entire career on the wrong side of history.”
Mr Trump’s speech came at a moment of piercing pain for a country convulsing anew over continued racial conflict. Sunday’s police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, reignited mass protests and led to an unprecedented boycott by professional athletes in protest of racial injustice.
The agonising and continuing reckoning over race was only one of the crises Mr Trump confronted in his address. He argued that, despite the wreckage on his watch, he could lead the country out of the pandemic and bring back the tens of millions of jobs lost in the accompanying recession.
“Our nation, and the entire planet, has been struck by a new and powerful invisible enemy,” Mr Trump said. “Like those brave Americans before us, we are meeting this challenge. We are delivering lifesaving therapies, and will produce a vaccine before the end of the year — or maybe even sooner. We will defeat the virus, end the pandemic and emerge stronger than ever before.”
By contrast, Mr Trump argued, “Joe Biden’s plan is not a solution to the virus, but rather it’s a surrender to the virus.”
By positioning himself as best equipped to see the country out of this year of catastrophe, Mr Trump reprised a signature argument from his Republican convention address in 2016, when the first-time candidate declared, “I alone can fix it.” In that speech four years ago in Cleveland, Mr Trump painted a dire portrait of America as lawless and terrorised, and overrun with immigrants - similar to the one he says Mr Biden would create should he become president.
Mr Trump used his speech on Thursday night to defend his management of the pandemic, which continues to ravage the country for the eighth straight month and has claimed the lives of at least 177,000 people in the United States. The number of deaths and continued spread of cases in this country vastly outpaces every other nation.
The Democrats delivered a sustained assault on Mr Trump’s handling of the pandemic at their convention last week. Some Republican convention speakers sought this week to counter that argument by asserting that the president did the best he could and saved lives — at times relying on false or misleading claims.