President Donald Trump lashed out at Joe Biden after the Democratic nominee gave what Trump called a ‘strange speech’ in Pittsburgh where he held the president responsible for escalating violence between cops, Black Lives Matter protesters and Trump supporters.
‘His strange speech today that he made in Pittsburgh, he didn’t mention the fact – he didn’t mention the far left – he didn’t mention the far left or from what I saw, I don’t believe he mentioned Antifa,’ the president griped from the White House podium Monday evening.
Biden went after Trump calling him a ‘toxic presence’ and accused him of ‘stoking violence in our cities’ asking voters, ‘Do you really feel safer under Trump?’ Biden also condemned riots and looting and called on Americans to ‘stand against violence – in every form it takes.’
In turn, Trump accused Biden and other Democrats of spewing ‘mafia talking points.’
‘The mob will leave you alone if you give them what you want, that’s what it is. That’s what’s happened with the Democrats,’ Trump tried to explain. ‘I actually think they’ve lost control of this radical left maniacs.’
Earlier, on Twitter, Trump had accused Biden of spending too much time ‘blaming the police’ in his Pittsburgh remarks.
President Donald Trump lashed out at Joe Biden’s ‘strange speech,’ saying the Democrat used ‘mafia talking points’ and should have brought up ‘Antifa’
Trump reacted to Biden’s speech by saying the Democratic nominee was ‘blaming the police more than he’s blaming the rioters, anarchists, agitators and looters.’ Trump also said Biden couldn’t condemn because the ‘radical left’ would stop supporting him
In a Trump retweet, the Trump War Room showed a brief clip of Biden in Pittsburgh stumbling over his words as he tried to make a point about the coronavirus death toll
Biden appeared in Pittsburgh and spoke out against Trump’s leadership, while pushing back on some of the narratives the Trump campaign has tried to push about the former vice president
‘Just watched what Biden had to say,’ Trump tweeted. ‘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 made similar comments at the briefing.
‘They really want to put it on the backs of police,’ Trump said of Biden and the Democrat’s running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris. ‘There is just a war on law enforcement in this country and without law enforcement we wouldn’t have a country,’ Trump said.
During Biden’s speech, the former vice president brough up law enforcement in the context of bringing them to the table alongside people fighting for racial justice.
‘I have worked with the police in this country for over forty years. I know most cops are good and decent people,’ Biden said.
The president didn’t let what Biden actually said to get in the way of his rant.
‘The rioters and Joe Biden have a side – they’re both on the side of the radical left and that is so obvious and until that neutralizes you’re never goint to have safe areas in those Democrat-run areas,’ Trump went on. ‘For months, Joe Biden has given moral aid and comfort to the vandals, repeating the monstrous lie that these are peaceful protests.’
During the opening of his press conference, Trump went back to Biden not bringing up Antifa more than once.
Antifa, which stands for those organizing around anti-fascism, is a loose assocation on the left and not a well-defined group, though it’s become the boogeyman of the right.
On Twitter, the president also retweeted a clip from the Trump War Room Twitter account, which showed Biden flubbing several lines of his speech, which he read from a teleprompter from Pittsburgh’s Mill 19, a converted steel mill.
‘COVID has taken this year – just since the outbreak – has taken, more than 100 year, look, here’s, the lives, it’s just, when you think about it,’ the clip shows Biden saying.
He ended up spitting out that COVID has taken ‘more lives this year than any other year.’
In a written transcript of the speech prepared for delivery, Biden was supposed to say, ‘COVID has taken more lives this year than any outbreak in more than 100 years.’
Trump and his campaign team have mocked the gaffe-prone Biden for months when he’s had verbal slip-ups, something Biden’s campaign tried to counter during the Democratic National Convention by having a New Hampshire youth speak about how Biden helped him recover from a stutter, a childhood problem Biden also had.
In his speech Monday, Biden tried to counter other ways Trump has tried to hit him.
‘You know me, you know my heart, you know my story, my family story – ask yourself, do I look like a radical socialist with a soft spot for rioters? Really?’ Biden said at one point.
Trump and his allies have tried to tie Biden to the so-called ‘radical left’ of the Democratic Party, including Sanders and ‘AOC,’ Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Biden also mocked some of the campaign ads Trump has tried to run against him that show what ‘Biden’s America’ looks like, using images of protests gone awry over the past few weeks.
‘Trump and Pence are running on this – and I find it fascinating – “you won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America,’ Biden said.
‘What’s their proof? The violence we’re seeing in Donald Trump’s America. These are not images of some imagined Joe Biden America in the future, these are images of Donald Trump’s America today,’ Biden continued.
‘He keeps telling you, if only he was president, it wouldn’t happen. If he was president, you’d feel safe. Well he is president, whether he knows it or not,’ Biden said.