Biden joins US race with jibe at Trump
Democrat Joe Biden yesterday joined the 2020 race for the White House, confirming his candidacy in a video warning America that another Donald Trump term of office would “forever and fundamentally alter the character of the nation”. Mr Trump responded to the 76-year-old former vice-president on Twitter, saying: “Welcome to the race Sleepy Joe”, before questioning his “intelligence” to wage a successful primary. Currently 20 Democrats are vying for the party’s nomination.
JOE BIDEN said Donald Trump posed a historic threat to the values of America yesterday as he formally announced his 2020 White House campaign, framing himself as the person best placed to defeat the US president.
Mr Biden, who served as Barack Obama’s vice-president for eight years, confirmed his expected candidacy in a video that declared a “battle for the soul of this nation” was under way.
“If we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation, who we are. And I cannot stand by and watch that happen,” Mr Biden said.
The 76-year-old has consistently led opinion polls asking who Democrats want as their 2020 presidential candidate ever since Mr Trump took office.
However, his challenge will be to appeal to the party’s energised Left-wing that wants a progressive policy platform and those favouring a candidate who embodies change.
Mr Trump was quick to respond on Twitter, writing: “Welcome to the race Sleepy Joe. I only hope you have the intelligence, long in doubt, to wage a successful primary campaign.
“It will be nasty – you will be dealing with people who truly have some very sick & demented ideas. But if you make it, I will see you at the starting gate!”
It will be the third presidential campaign for Mr Biden, who secured just a fraction of Democrat primary votes in the 1988 and 2008 campaigns and dropped out early.
Announcing his campaign in a threeand-a-half minute video, Mr Biden focused on Mr Trump’s response to a 2017 clash between white supremacists and anti-racist protesters in Charlottesville that left one woman dead.
“He said there were ‘some very fine people on both sides’,” Mr Biden said of Mr Trump’s reaction to the violence.
“Very fine people on both sides? With those words, the president of the United States assigned a moral equivalence between those spreading hate and those with the courage to stand against it. And in that moment, I knew the threat to this nation was unlike any I had ever seen in my lifetime.”
Mr Biden enters a packed field, with 20 Democrats seeking the nomination and possibly more still to enter. Primary voting starts in February 2020.
Mr Biden was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania – a swing state won by Mr Trump in 2016 – and has touted his ability to win over working-class voters who abandoned the Democrats. His first campaign event will be in the state on Monday.
However he must overcome a string of political challenges if he is to win the nomination. A surge of progressive energy from Left-wing Democrats, driven by Bernie Sanders, the Democratic socialist senator, is at odds with Mr Biden’s historic willingness to reach across the aisle and work with Republicans.
He faces accusations that he touched women inappropriately at political events, such as rubbing shoulders or kissing people on the head, claims that surfaced in recent weeks. He promised to learn from the incidents.
His age – Mr Biden would be 78 on his first day in office – and status as a white male Washington insider at a time when the party had a historically diverse set of candidates elected to Congress last year will be questioned.
Mr Obama’s spokesman released a statement praising Mr Biden’s “knowledge, insight and judgment”. However the former president declined to give an endorsement and is understood to have decided not to back any candidate during the Democrat primaries.