Joe Biden once again considers stopping Donald Trump as his mission in life. Preventing a second term for the Republican, whom he considers a danger to democracy, was already the key motivation for entering the race for the White House four years ago. Biden defeated Trump, but everything indicates that the battle will be repeated and so will the motivation. “We have to get it, not for me. If Trump didn’t run, I’m not sure if I would run. But we can’t let him win,” he said this Tuesday at a fundraising event in Weston (Massachusetts) at the home of Alan Solomont, a Democratic donor who was ambassador to Spain and chairs the United States-Spain Chamber of Commerce.
In the 2020 presidential election campaign, Biden defined himself as “a transitional candidate.” Biden has just turned 81 and would end a hypothetical second term at 86. Due to his age, greater importance than usual was given to his election for the vice presidency, which after a long wait fell to Kamala Harris. There was speculation that whoever held that position would run for president in 2024, once Trump had disappeared from the political scene and political polarization had attenuated.
The former president, however, has not only established the hoax that the elections were stolen from him, but has convinced the vast majority of Republican voters of it. He is the favorite in the Republican primaries and also leads the polls for the presidential elections. Meanwhile, the figure of Kamala Harris has not caught on and Biden believes that the person who has the best chance of defeating Trump is himself again. “He may not be the only one, but I know him well. And I know the danger he represents to our democracy. And we’ve been through this before,” he said in April at a White House press conference.
When Democrats did better than expected in the November 2022 elections, Biden had not yet confirmed that he would run for re-election. He assured that he planned to make the decision in early 2023 and already then stressed the importance he gave to Trump “not becoming the next president again.”
Since the beginning of the re-election campaign he has reiterated the message, but never until this Tuesday had he expressly suggested that he might not run for a second term if it were not for Trump. “We will always defend, protect and fight for democracy,” he said this Tuesday. “That’s why I’m running.”
“Trump doesn’t even hide the ball anymore,” Biden also said at another event, also in the Boston area. “He is telling us what he is going to do. “He doesn’t mince his words,” he added, referring to his rival as the “defeated former president.” Trump has openly vowed to go after his political rivals if he returns to the White House, as revenge for his own indictments. “Yeah. “If they do this, and they already have, but if they go ahead with this, yes, it could certainly happen the other way around,” he said in an interview with Univision in November. “What they have done is let the genie out of the bottle,” he continued. “They’ve done something that allows the next party…if by chance I’m president and I see someone who’s doing well and beating me, I say, ‘Go and impeach him,'” he added.
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The former president has embraced increasingly violent and authoritarian rhetoric. He has referred to his political rivals as “vermin” that must be “eradicated” and also affirms that undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood of the country”, expressions with echoes of Nazi Germany or fascist Italy, as they have shown. the historians. Trump has also attacked judges and prosecutors, suggested that his former chief of staff Mark Miley should be executed, and has advocated shooting shoplifters.
Trump strikes back
Knowing that attacks on the danger he represents to democracy hurt him, Trump tried last weekend to turn the tables: “Biden is not the defender of American democracy. “Biden is the destroyer of democracy,” he said at an event in Cedar Rapids (Iowa). “He has instrumentalized the Government against his political opponents as a Third World political tyrant,” he added.
“American democracy, I give you my word as Biden, is at stake,” the president said at one of the three campaign fundraisers in the Boston area that he hosted this Tuesday. “He didn’t even come to my inauguration. I can’t say that he disappointed me, but he didn’t even appear,” he said in the three acts, causing laughter from the audience. “I guess he won’t appear at my next inauguration either,” he added to the applause of the public.
Biden is not alone in his warnings about the risk posed by Trump. Former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney has just published her book Oath and honor, with the same message. “We will vote to preserve our republic,” she writes. “As a nation, we can endure harmful policies for a four-year term. But we cannot survive a president willing to destroy our Constitution,” he adds, warning of the risk of the United States sliding towards a dictatorial regime for the first time in its history.
On Friday, Biden will have another fundraising event at the home of another former ambassador to Spain. It will be in Los Angeles, at the home of James Costos and his partner, Michael Smith, a famous interior designer who decorated the White House for President Barack Obama. She hopes to raise millions of dollars in the first act with Hollywood personalities after the writers and actors strikes. Musician Lenny Kravitz is scheduled to perform. Film director Steven Spielberg and his wife, actress Kate Capshaw, are among the event’s hosts; as did record industry mogul David Geffen; director and actor Rob Reiner; the director of scandal, Shonda Rhimes, and “This is Spinal Tap” director Rob Reiner, according to an invitation obtained by the AP. Barbra Streisand will also attend, as will former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat.
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