ATLANTA \u2014 President Biden and former president Donald Trump painted starkly different visions for the country Saturday night as they campaigned 70 miles apart in Georgia, with Trump delivering an insult-filled, mocking diatribe against the sitting president.<\/p>\n
The dueling appearances, eight months before Election Day, demonstrated how divisive and combative the general election campaign has already become before either candidate has officially clinched their party\u2019s nomination, though both are likely to do so shortly.<\/p>\n
Trump spoke for nearly two hours and leveled his attacks in particularly personal and inflammatory ways. He mocked Biden for having a stutter, called the press \u201ccriminals\u201d and blamed the president for the death of a young woman who was allegedly killed by a Venezuelan migrant who entered the country illegally.<\/p>\n
By contrast, Biden only spoke for about 20 minutes, largely focusing on comparing his record with Trump\u2019s. He hammered Trump for cozying up to authoritarian leaders, rolling back women\u2019s reproductive rights and trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act \u2014 while touting his record defending individual rights, freedom and democracy.<\/p>\n
The campaign visits underscored the key role that Georgia will play in November, after Biden defeated Trump in the state by fewer than 12,000 votes in the 2020 election. Trump decidedly won the state in 2016, beating Hillary Clinton by five percentage points. The state is also holding its primary Tuesday; both candidates are expected to win the state handily after their main rivals suspended their campaigns.<\/p>\n
Biden rallied voters in Atlanta, while Trump held his event in Rome, a city in northwest Georgia that is part of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene\u2019s (R-Ga.) district. The visits came two days after Biden delivered a fiery State of the Union address, during which he assailed Trump, though not directly by name, for threatening individual rights, freedom and democracy. In his two campaign appearances since, Biden has started to criticize Trump directly.<\/p>\n
\u201cDonald Trump has a different constituency,\u201d Biden said on Saturday night. \u201cHere\u2019s a guy who\u2019s kicking off his general election campaign on the road up with Marjorie Taylor Greene. It can tell you a lot about a person who he keeps company with.\u201d Biden also noted that Trump hosted Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Friday night, who Biden says \u201cdoesn\u2019t think democracy works.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump made the border crisis a central focus of his speech, ratcheting up his anti-immigrant rhetoric as he spoke about the murder of Laken Riley, the Georgia nursing student who was killed while jogging. Trump met with Riley\u2019s family ahead of his speech and blamed Biden\u2019s border policy for her death, describing it as \u201cfree to kill.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cJoe Biden has no remorse, he\u2019s got no regret, he\u2019s got no empathy, no compassion and worst of all he has no intention of stopping the deadly invasion that stole precious Laken\u2019s beautiful American life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He also criticized Biden for garbling Riley\u2019s first name during the State of the Union address and for saying he regretted using the word \u201cillegal\u201d to describe the suspect in her death. In an interview with MSNBC that aired Saturday evening, Biden said he should have used the word \u201cundocumented\u201d instead of illegal.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe wanted to apologize,\u201d Trump said, to boos in the crowd. \u201cBiden should be apologizing for apologizing to this killer.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cI will stop the killing. I will stop the bloodshed. I will end the agony of our people, the plunder of our cities, the sacking of our towns, the violation of our citizens and the conquest of our country. These people are conquering our country.\u201d<\/p>\n
Riley\u2019s murder has rallied Republicans, who have cited her killing to criticize the historic number of apprehensions since Biden took office in 2021 and to portray migrants as dangerous. Before Biden\u2019s State of the Union address, Greene handed Biden a pin with Riley\u2019s name.<\/p>\n
As Greene heckled Biden during the speech to \u201csay her name,\u201d Biden held up the pin and said Riley had been \u201ckilled by an illegal\u201d but then asked: \u201cHow many of thousands of people are being killed by legals?\u201d (Experts say there\u2019s little evidence that undocumented immigrants commit more crime, and federal data shows most of those arrested at the border do not have criminal convictions.)<\/p>\n
In an ad-libbed moment on Thursday night, Biden offered his condolences to Riley\u2019s family and called on Congress to pass a bipartisan border security bill that died in the Senate, amid widespread GOP opposition led by Trump.<\/p>\n
At Biden\u2019s event on Saturday, he received the joint endorsement of three political action committees \u2014 AAPI Victory Fund, The Collective PAC, and Latino Victory Fund \u2014 and a commitment from the groups to spend $30 million to mobilize Black, Latino, and Asian American and Pacific Islander voters.<\/p>\n
Shekar Narasimhan, the chairman of the AAPI victory fund, said Democrats\u2019 ability to motivate communities of color will be critical to the president\u2019s success.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the ballgame for Democrats,\u201d he said in an interview before the rallies. \u201cEven in states where there\u2019s a predominantly White population, the margins are so thin that, for example, getting the Hmong vote in Wisconsin may be critical to winning the election.\u201d<\/p>\n
Biden trumpeted his record on racial equity, highlighting the diversity of his Cabinet, his appointment of Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to sit on the Supreme Court, and record-low Black and Latino unemployment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe same forces that want to deny the right to vote, try to deny other core values of American diversity as well,\u201d Biden said. \u201cBanning books, erasing history. Instead of celebrating the contribution of immigrants to our country, to our economy and our communities, Donald Trump calls them vermin, poisoning the blood of America. No one should ever doubt where my heart is.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Saturday, Trump falsely claimed that Biden had \u201cannounced a plan to send our brave U.S. military men and women into Gaza to resupply the terrorists of Hamas.\u201d During the State of the Union, Biden said that the U.S. military would construct a temporary pier on the coastline of Gaza to provide a new route for humanitarian aid to reach desperate civilians. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are at risk of famine and disease from decrepit conditions.<\/p>\n
U.S. officials have said the pier will involve the presence of U.S. military personnel on military vessels offshore from Gaza, but will not require U.S. military personnel to install the pier ashore or to offload the aid. The aid will be distributed inside Gaza by the United Nations and other humanitarian personnel.<\/p>\n
Biden\u2019s trip to Georgia came as part of his post-State of the Union tour of the battleground states, which began Friday in Pennsylvania. In the week ahead, he will travel to New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Michigan.<\/p>\n
Biden\u2019s campaign also announced that it was launching a $30 million advertising campaign as part of the pivot to the general election. In the first ad, which was released Saturday, the president directly confronts concerns about his age as he contrasts his record with Trump\u2019s.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook, I\u2019m not a young guy,\u201d Biden says at the start of the 60-second advertisement. \u201cThat\u2019s no secret, but here\u2019s the deal: I understand how to get things done for the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some voters at Biden\u2019s event downplayed concerns about his age, pointing to the president\u2019s performance at the State of the Union as evidence of his ability to do the job.<\/p>\n
\u201cAge is not a big deal to me,\u201d said Paula Benson, a 56-year-old resident of Cumming, Ga. \u201cI see his actions. I see his heart. Donald Trump is stumbling over his words and his feet and acting very unhinged. He\u2019s the one I\u2019m really concerned about.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s campaign riffed on the age question by releasing an ad titled \u201cNot a Young Guy,\u201d which featured videos of Biden stumbling or falling down.<\/p>\n
A Fox News poll conducted in January found that in a matchup between Biden and Trump, 51 percent of registered voters in Georgia said they would vote for Trump, while 43 percent said they would vote for Biden.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s return to Georgia came as he faces 13 state charges in connection with his efforts to try to overturn Biden\u2019s 2020 victory in Georgia. Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D) launched an investigation more than three years ago after audio leaked of a call that Trump made in January 2021 to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), in which Trump said he wanted to \u201cfind\u201d the votes to reverse his 2020 loss.<\/p>\n
Trump was charged in August, alongside several of his allies, and he was booked at the Fulton County jail. The sheriff\u2019s office released a mug shot of Trump that day, an iconic image embraced by his campaign, supporters and fundraisers as the former president seeks to portray himself as a victim of a weaponized justice system.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not clear, however, when the Georgia election interference case will go to trial. Willis is under scrutiny for having a romantic relationship with the case\u2019s lead prosecutor, Nathan Wade. A judge is considering whether the relationship created a conflict of interest or the appearance of one and whether Willis and her office should be removed from the case. He is expected to make a decision by Friday.<\/p>\n
Trump nodded to his legal entanglements Saturday, mocking the pronunciation of Willis\u2019s first name and calling her \u201ccorrupt.\u201d He described her relationship with Wade as \u201csort of a beautiful love story.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also continued to falsely claim that the 2020 election was \u201crigged\u201d and reiterated his suggestion that his domestic opponents posed a bigger threat than the foreign countries.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest threat we have, it\u2019s the threat from within,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s the radical left lunatics that we have in this country. That\u2019s a much bigger threat than outside threats.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vickie Frantz, 54, of Rome, said that Trump\u2019s messages \u201cmostly about the border closing\u201d and \u201cgetting justice for the girl,\u201d referencing Riley, stood out to her as \u201cthe most important thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
She described Trump\u2019s comments about Biden as \u201cmostly fair\u201d but when asked about him imitating Biden\u2019s stutter, she said, \u201cI didn\u2019t really think he should have done that.\u201d<\/p>\n
An earlier version of this article misspelled the last name of the chairman of the AAPI victory fund. He is Shekar Narasimhan, not Narashimhan. This article has been corrected.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
LeVine reported from Rome, Ga. Toluse Olorunnipa in Atlanta contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
ATLANTA \u2014 President Biden and former president Donald Trump painted starkly different visions for the country Saturday night as they campaigned 70 miles apart in Georgia, with Trump delivering an insult-filled, mocking diatribe against the sitting president. The dueling appearances, eight months before Election Day, demonstrated how divisive and combative the general election campaign has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1964,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}