Back on the campaign trail for his first rally since the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, Joe Biden on Tuesday in Las Vegas castigated his rival’s record and remarks while reiterating his calls for calm in the country.
At a rally organized by the country’s leading civil rights group, the 81-year-old Democratic president called for a reduction in the temperature in an on-edge America and a ban on the type of weapon used against Donald Trump on Saturday.
“Help me rid the streets of America of these weapons of war. An AR-15 was used in the shooting of Donald Trump… It’s time to remove them,” the American president said.
He said he was “relieved” that his Republican rival, who was shot in the ear, was okay after being shot at one of his rallies in Pennsylvania.
Joe Biden, however, castigated the former president’s term in office as “hell for African-Americans,” thus resuming his barbs after holding back his blows for a few days.
He criticized Donald Trump’s mention of “black jobs” during their debate in late June, during which the president himself delivered a poor performance, often struggling to express himself clearly.
“I know what a black job is, it’s that of vice president of the United States,” Biden retorted, referring to Vice President Kamala Harris, the first African-American woman to hold the position.
” Full of energy “
After the disastrous debate, calls from Democrats for the president to withdraw from the race for the White House have multiplied. The assassination attempt against Donald Trump has given him a small respite that his team is trying to take advantage of.
Democrats are now trying to fast-track his nomination, preferably before the Democratic convention in August, despite calls to delay it and lingering tensions within the Democratic camp.
“It is our duty as a campaign to do everything we can to get President Biden on the ballot,” Quentin Fulks, a senior campaign official, said at a news conference in Milwaukee.
At the rally in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Joe Biden supporters showed determination.
“I found the president to be really energetic,” said Donna Jackson-Houston, a member of the civil rights group NAACP.
She admitted that she and “many others had doubts” about the Democrat’s age and his debate gaffes, but that he had done “a good job today of convincing me.”
Tony Fields of New Jersey also praised the speech as “very insightful” and called the debate “just a bad night” for the president.
On the assassination attempt, Joe Biden acknowledged Monday that he made a “mistake” in calling for “targeting” Donald Trump during an event with donors, just days before the attack that targeted him.
“I meant, focus on him, on what he’s doing,” the Democrat said in an interview with NBC.
But he did not deny the essence of his statement, which is to present the former White House resident as a danger to American democracy.