Trump backpedals over racist group row

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump scrambled to quell an uproar over his failure to explicitly denounce white supremacist groups during his debate with Joe Biden, who branded his election rival a “national embarrassment”.

The bitter adversaries returned to the campaign trail a day after their off-the-rails showdown in Cleveland made headlines more for unrestrained chaos than substance.

The shout fest, with Trump interrupting and Biden launching personal attacks, even prompted the overseeing Commission on Presidential Debates to announce that it would impose new measures to help moderators “maintain order” at the upcoming two debates.

After his assertive performance Biden launched a whistlestop train tour on Wednesday through battleground states Ohio and Pennsylvania, where he hammered away at Trump.

“The president conducted himself the way he did – I think it was a national embarrassment,” Biden said in Alliance, Ohio.

He fiercely attacked Trump’s failure to clearly denounce white supremacist groups or the far-right Proud Boys, instead giving a shoutout to the male-only militia group by saying they should “stand back and stand by” and that the real problem was “far-left” extremists.

“My message to the Proud Boys and every other white supremacist group is: cease and desist. This is not who we are as Americans,” Biden said.

Trump, in an apparent attempt to tamp down outrage over his comments, called on the group to “stand down”.

“I don’t know who Proud Boys are but whoever they are, they have to stand down. Stand down, let law enforcement do their work,” he said.