Trump, Biden hold duelling rallies in key states
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump told a Pennsylvania crowd he’s fighting “Marxists” and “lunatics” while his Democratic challenger Joe Biden accused him in Florida, another key state, of having treated Americans as “expendable” during the Covid-19 pandemic.
With 21 days to go for the presidential election, more than 10 million people have already voted, breaking records for early voting. The US Elections Project, which tracks early voting, said 10.5mn ballots were cast as of Tuesday morning, nearly 7.6% of all votes cast in the 2016 election.
Addressing a raucous crowd in Johnstown on Tuesday, Trump said Biden was “choking like a dog” during their televised debate and repeated the claim that the former vice-president was the pawn of communists. “He is handing control to the socialists and Marxists and leftwing extremists... He can’t stand up to the lunatics running his party.”
Trump also said he felt like “Superman” after his experimental Covid-19 treatment and again boasted about his “immunity” to the disease that has claimed over 216,000 lives in America.
Speaking in Pembroke, Florida the same day, Biden sought to peel away older white American supporters of Trump. “You deserve respect and peace of mind, but you’re not getting it because to Donald Trump, you’re expendable. You’re forgettable. You’re ‘virtually nobody’.”
“That’s how he sees seniors. That’s how he sees you.”
Trump tweeted a faked picture purporting to show Biden as a senior in a wheelchair, surrounded by elderly wheelchairbound people in a room. “Biden for president,” the caption said, with “p” struck out to change the word to “resident”.
Trump and Biden will hold duelling town hall events on Thursday, the date they were originally scheduled to meet for their second debate, which was later cancelled. The two events will be aired live at the same time. Trump will be in Miami, Florida for his town hall hosted by NBC News and Biden will be in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with ABC News.
On Wednesday, The New York Post newspaper reported that data recovered from an abandoned laptop showed Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, introduced the then vice-president to an executive of a Ukrainian energy firm.
Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board at Burisma, thanked Hunter Biden in an April 2015 email for inviting him to Washington and “giving an opportunity to meet your father,” about a year after Hunter joined the company, according to the Post.
A May 2014 email also showed that Pozharskyi had sought advice from Hunter on ways “you could use your influence” on Burisma’s behalf, the paper reported. It claimed that the communication contradicted an assertion by Joe Biden that he hadn’t spoken to his son about his business dealings. The emails do not reveal whether Biden actually met the Burisma adviser, or detail the extent of the meeting, or say whether Biden spoke to his son about it.
Trump had charged that Biden’s actions in Ukraine, in which he pushed for the dismissal of its prosecutor general, were to benefit Hunter.