Biden pins protest violence on Trump
Pittsburgh speech rare in-person campaigning
PITTSBURGH — Accusing President Donald Trump of “poisoning” the nation’s values, Joe Biden condemned violence at recent protests Monday and blamed Trump as the battle over who’s at fault and who can keep Americans safe emerged as the sharpest dividing line for the campaign’s final weeks.
Biden accused Trump of causing the divisions that have ignited the violence, delivering an uncharacteristically blistering speech and distancing himself from radical forces involved in altercations.
He said of Trump: “He doesn’t want to shed light, he wants to generate heat, and he’s stoking violence in our cities. He can’t stop the violence because for years he’s fomented it.”
Biden also tried to refocus the race on what has been its defining theme — Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic that has left more than 180,000 Americans dead — after a multiday onslaught by the president’s team to make the campaign about the violence rattling American cities.
Biden himself has largely remained near his home in Delaware to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, but he stepped out in a new phase of his campaign on Monday, in a speech in Pittsburgh and a brief stop at a local firehouse.
The president and his team continued to hammer away on what they believe is a powerful electoral argument, contending that Biden is in thrall to leftist forces and emphasizing chaotic protest images they believe could send worried suburban and senior voters back to Trump’s column.
“Just watched what Biden had to say,” Trump tweeted soon after the former vice president concluded his remarks in Pittsburgh. “To me, he’s blaming the Police far more than he’s blaming the Rioters, Anarchists, Agitators, and Looters, which he could never blame or he would lose the Radical Left Bernie supports!”
Trump also plans to visit Kenosha on Tuesday.