USA: Biden and Trump boost their campaigns with speeches full of crossed attacks

With the November presidential election approaching, Joe Biden probably wanted to give his presidential campaign a boost: in a speech, the American president accused his rival, Donald Trump, of using a speech inspired “by the Nazis.”

Donald Trump, the great favorite of the Republicans, “is willing to sacrifice our democracy to gain power”denounced the Democratic president near Valley Forge, in Pennsylvania, a historic site of the American War of Independence.

“He talks about Americans' blood being poisoned, using exactly the same language that was used in Nazi Germany,” continued Biden, 81, who is running close to or just behind Donald Trump in the latest polls.

The president was due to deliver his speech on Saturday, three years after the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021by supporters of Donald Trump who were trying to prevent the certification of Joe Biden's victory, but the date was brought forward to Friday due to a storm forecast.

The assault on the Capitol continues to be a source of contention in the United States: according to a survey by 'The Washington Post' and the University of Maryland published this week, a quarter of Americans think, without evidence, that the FBI is behind it.

“Trump and his MAGA followers ('Make America Great Again', the signature motto of the Republican billionaire) not only support political violence, they laugh at it,” Joe Biden denounced again on Friday.

A Trump spokesman, Steven Cheung, immediately responded by saying that Biden was “the real threat to democracy.”

“An aggravated threat”

Previously, the president's campaign manager, Julie Chávez Rodríguez, had stated that the election speech given by Joe Biden four years ago, in which he spoke of a “battle for the soul of the United States”, was more relevant than ever.

“The threat that Donald Trump posed in 2020 to American democracy has only gotten worse,” he said in a statement.

The location chosen by the Democrat for his speech is symbolic: Valley Forge was where George Washington, the first president of the United States, gathered the American military forces fighting the British Empire almost 250 years ago.

“We chose Valley Forge because George Washington united the colonies here,” said Quentin Fulks, deputy campaign manager. “He then became president and laid the foundation for the peaceful transition of power, something Donald Trump and the Republicans refused to do.”

This desire to accelerate Joe Biden's campaign comes after criticism from some Democrats who believe that he started too slowly.

The president has failed to convince voters that the economy is improving, despite better-than-expected employment numbers released Friday, and he acknowledged that prices remain “too high for too many Americans.”

Trump responds from Iowa

A few hours later, Trump defended himself from Iowa. The former Republican president accused Biden of “instilling fear” with his words. Furthermore, he assured, that “the record of the current president is an uninterrupted streak of weakness, incompetence, corruption and failure.”

During his speech, the magnate addressed Biden as 'Joe the Scoundrel' and criticized him for the situation on the southern border, with an increasing arrival of migrants. In addition, he referred to the country's economy, according to him, greatly deteriorated, and also to the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan. A fact that he also harshly criticized.

On the other hand, he questioned the crises currently being experienced in the Middle East and Ukraine, and which, according to Trump, the current president has failed to contain.

Supreme Court to hear Trump's appeal over disqualification in Colorado

The Supreme Court of the United States agreed on Friday to hear Donald Trump's appeal of a court decision that excludes the former president from the Republican primary elections in the state of Colorado.

At issue is the Colorado Supreme Court's Dec. 19 ruling disqualifying Trump from the state's Republican primary ballot based on the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution for participating in an insurrection, which involved the January 6, 2021 attack by his supporters on the Capitol.

The judges made the decision to hear the case with unusual speed. Trump had filed his appeal this Wednesday and on December 27, the state Republican Party had also appealed the ruling.

Tomorrow “Biden would lose”

Other issues for the Democrat include immigration and the dilemma on the border with Mexico, support for Israel's war against Hamas dividing his party and Congress blocking his request for additional funds for Ukraine.

Joe Biden's refusal to mention Donald Trump's multiple legal disputes, to avoid giving the impression of influencing the judicial system, has also deprived him of one of his main weapons against the Republican billionaire.

The first doubt that falls on Biden probably continues to be his age. His slips and slips of the tongue are scrutinized.

He has the worst popularity rating for a sitting president in the month of December before an election.

“If the election were tomorrow, President Biden would lose,” William Galston, an expert at the Brookings Institution, told AFP.

Joe Biden's first campaign video, released on Thursday and set to air for the first time on television on Saturday, January 6, warns of the “extreme threat” to democracy by showing footage of the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 .

“It was a horrible thing to see,” White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Thursday. “The president will continue to talk about this.”

With AFP