Biden hits campaign trail; blames Trump for city violence

Declaring President Donald Trump a “toxic presence,” Joe Biden forcefully condemned the violence at recent protests while also blaming Trump for fomenting the divide that’s sparking it.

“He doesn't want to shed light, he wants to generate heat, and he’s stoking violence inside our cities,” Biden said Monday. “He can't stop the violence because for a long time he’s fomented it."

In another of his sharpest attacks on the president yet, Biden continued to call Trump a “toxic presence in this nation for four years” and accuse him of “poisoning the values this nation has always held dear, poisoning our very democracy.”

“In only a little over 60 days, we have a decision to create: Will we rid ourselves of this toxin? Or make it a everlasting part of our nation’s character?” Biden asked.

The speech marked a fresh phase of the campaign as Biden steps up his travel after largely remaining near his home in Wilmington, Delaware, to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. And, after centering his candidacy on accusing Trump of mishandling the pandemic, Biden is making a broader push to argue that Americans will not be safe if Trump wins reelection.

That's an effort to blunt Trump's recent line of argument a Biden presidency means more violence and rioting in the streets, the main law and order message the president is emphasizing as some protests against racial injustice have grown to be violent.

The Trump campaign has sought to keep that focus just because a sense has taken hold in his camp that the more the national discourse is approximately anything other than the virus, the better it is for the president.

Trump tweeted on Monday: “The Radical Left Mayors & Governors of Cities where this crazy violence is occurring have lost control of their ‘Movement.’ It wasn’t said to be like this, however the Anarchists & Agitators got overly enthusiastic and don’t listen ever again - even forced Slow Joe out of basement!”

Trump and his Republican allies have falsely accused Biden of ignoring the violence committed by some protesters at recent demonstrations, after persons were shot at protests in Kenosha, Wisconsin and Portland, Oregon in recent weeks.

On Monday, Biden denounced violence and looting at protests.

“It’s lawlessness, basically. And the ones who do it should be prosecuted,” he said.

He also accused Trump to be too “weak” to ask his own supporters to avoid acting as “armed militia." And he leaned by himself 47-year career in politics to defend himself against Republican attacks.

“You know me. You understand my heart. You understand my story, my family’s story. Ask yourself: Do I appear to be a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really?”

Biden hit Trump on from his handling of the coronavirus pandemic to the economy to relations with Russia.

He declared that that even while Trump is “trying to scare America,” what's really triggering the nation's fear is Trump's own failures. He pointed to a growth in murders this past year, the tens of thousands dead from the coronavirus and the financial damage done by the pandemic.

“You want to talk about fear? They’re afraid they’re going to get COVID, they’re afraid they're going to get sick and die," Biden said.

In Kenosha, Wisconsin, the National Guard was deployed to quell demonstrations in response to the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, which may have resulted in some looting, vandalism and the shooting deaths of two protesters.

And this weekend, among Trump's supporters was shot at a demonstration in Portland, Oregon, prompting multiple tweets from Trump.

Portland has seen almost 100 consecutive nights of Black Lives Matter protests,and several have ended with vandalism to federal and city property.

Trump and other speakers at last week’s Republican National Convention frequently highlighted incidents of violence at protests that were sparked by the police killing of George Floyd last May, predicting that if Biden is elected in November such incidents can be the norm.

However, Biden accuses Trump of viewing the violence as a “political benefit.”

“He’s rooting for more violence, not less,"”Biden said the other day.

For months, Trump was desperately trying to distract from the pandemic, And sometimes he appeared to receive slight positive bumps in support when touting the possible monetary recovery, campaign officials said. But other attempts to improve the narrative with cultural wedge issues fell flat, including a defense of Confederate monuments, and polling suggested that Trump was far out of step with the Black Lives Matter movement, which enjoyed wide public support.

The Trump team has leaned hard on the push for law and order, even after it backfired when the president cleared Lafayette Square of peaceful protesters in early June. They now feel well informed of the problem, having spent weeks, and their convention, hammering home one of their closing arguments: that Biden is an instrument of the radical left and is powerless to avoid the fringe forces.

Monday's Biden speech marked a newly aggressive offense from the Democratic presidential nominee, who has so far spent much of the campaign laser-focused on attacking Trump for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. The setting also reflected a ramped-up campaign, as both Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris prepare to engage in more travel after months of campaigning done largely online.

Pennsylvania specifically is a key battleground state in the November election, and Western Pennsylvania could possibly be pivotal to both parties’ hopes for a win. There, Trump’s strong support among white working-class voters helped him eke out a 44,000-vote win in 2016, but Democrats believe Biden’s appeal to those voters, and also suburbanites, can help him this November.

This week the state will see a flurry of campaign activity, with Vice President Mike Pence visiting Tuesday and Trump making his own stop Thursday.

In a sign of how significant the state will be for Biden, he offered a primary rebuttal of Republican attacks centered on his stance on fracking, that is a key way to obtain energy industry jobs in the state.