Biden, Trump continue war of words

US President Joe Biden and presumptive White House challenger Donald Trump traded barbs on Saturday on the key topics of age and immigration, as they targeted the battleground state of Georgia.

Biden, hoping to ride the momentum from a feisty State of the Union speech on Thursday, went to the state’s capital of Atlanta to mobilise black and Hispanic voters.

He once again attacked his Republican predecessor, who has vowed to be a “dictator” for one day. “When he says he wants to be a dictator, I believe him,” Biden told a rally, highlighting US economic strength while promising action to cut costs in areas such as housing, health and education.

In an interview with MSNBC aired on Saturday night, Biden said he regretted using the term “an illegal” when referring to the killer of a nursing student last month in Georgia.

“I shouldn’t have used ‘illegal’ it’s ‘undocumented’,” said Biden, who’s been criticised by progressives and members of his own party for using terminology more commonly used by Republicans.

Trump, who is pledging a crackdown on illegal immigration as a key plank of his campaign, talked at length during his rally on Saturday about the slain student. “Laken Riley would be alive today if Joe Biden had not willfully and maliciously eviscerated the borders of the United States,” he told a crowd of supporters in Georgia’s Republican-leaning northwestern corner.

He slammed Biden for backtracking on his use of the word “illegal” to describe the Venezuelan suspect in the crime, saying, “Biden should be apologizing for apologizing to this killer”. –