Biden steps up attack against Trump
and that there aren’t enough public health workers today to achieve what’s needed.
Biden also backed more funding for schools and child care centers as they reopen and the creation of a “safe shopper” program meant to make returning consumers less wary of getting sick as life begins returning to normal.
He referenced the potentially eye-popping price tag of such ambitious plans, joking, “There goes that big spending Democrat again.” But Biden added: “If we don’t do this, we’re going to be in deep, deep, deeper trouble economically.”
As the plan was being released, his campaign circulated an online petition urging Facebook to strengthen its misinformation rules. Social media giant Twitter has already drawn Trump’s ire by imposing stricter limits on how he and others use the social media network.
“We’re sending Facebook a letter demanding that the company change its policies to crack down on misinformation in ads and ensure a fair election,” the petition reads. Facebook responded that “the people’s elected representatives should set the rules, and we will follow them.
“There is an election coming in November and we will protect political speech,” the company said in a statement “even when we strongly disagree with it.”
As his campaign strikes at Facebook, Biden is also dramatically increasing spending on the platform. His campaign outlaid millions of dollars on ads that are themed around the protests sweeping the country and Trump’s response to them.
After remaining at home for months, Biden has begun holding public events within driving distance of his house in Delaware. But his more aggressive approach has so far not extended to resuming large campaign rallies.
That is in contrast to Trump, who flew Thursday to Dallas for a $10 million fundraiser and says he’ll begin holding a series of rallies starting next week in Oklahoma. Biden’s campaign says it will resume normal campaign travel and events when public health officials and authorities say it’s safe.
Melissa Reed, a spokesperson for Trump Victory in Pennsylvania, said voters “don’t want to return to the stagnant economic growth under the Obama-Biden administration, they want a Great American Comeback under President Trump.”
Biden’s economic plan and Facebook criticism followed him saying his chief worry is that Trump will attempt to “steal” November’s election — and that he’s even considered the possibility that the president would refuse to leave the White House should he lose.
“My single greatest concern: This president’s going to try and steal this election,” Biden said on “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah,” which aired Wednesday night. “This is a guy who said all mail-in ballots are fraudulent, voting by mail, while he sits behind the desk in the Oval Office and writes his mail-in ballot to vote in the primary.”
Biden was asked whether he’s considered what would happen if Trump refused to vacate the presidency in the event he wasn’t reelected. “I have,” the former vice president responded, before suggesting that the military could step in to ensure a peaceful transition of power.
“I am absolutely convinced they will escort him from the White House with great dispatch,” Biden said.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany responded that Biden was taking “a ridiculous proposition.”
Trump has intensified his claim that absentee voting, which many states are expanding to avoid crowds at polling places during the coronavirus outbreak, increases the possibility of fraud. There is little evidence to support that assertion, and Trump has voted by mail in the past.
Still, a chaotic Tuesday primary in Georgia, where there were problems with voting machines and long lines, may foreshadow a messy November election.
Biden said on the “Daily Show” that his campaign would hire lawyers to observe balloting in “every district in the country.”