Category: Joe Biden

Biden savors Trump’s latest attacks

The Hill logoPresident Trump escalated his attacks on Joe Biden on Monday, lashing out at his rival as protests and riots spilled into the streets and turned violent for the third straight night. 

“Sleepy Joe Biden’s people are so Radical Left that they are working to get the Anarchists out of jail, and probably more,” Trump wrote in a Monday morning tweet. “Joe doesn’t know anything about it, he is clueless, but they will be the real power, not Joe. They will be calling the shots! Big tax increases for all, Plus!”

To Democrats, Trump’s tweet signaled a kind of desperation. Continue reading.

Trump calls mask wearing ‘politically correct,’ Biden calls him a ‘fool’

Washington Post logoPresident Trump dismissed a mask-wearing reporter as being “politically correct” on Tuesday, while the presumptive Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, called him a “fool” for mocking their use.

The president’s refusal to wear a face mask in public, defying recommendations from public health experts, has become a symbol for his supporters resisting stay-at-home orders amid the coronavirus crisis. To wear one then is seen by some as being anti-Trump.

In early April, Trump announced new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that Americans wear face coverings in public to slow the spread of the coronavirus, reversing the administration’s earlier recommendations that masks weren’t necessary. The president was clear, however, that he would not be wearing a mask — even though “it may be good” advice. Continue reading.

Trump, who spent Memorial Day without a face mask, shares tweet criticizing Biden for wearing one

Washington Post logoHours after President Trump was spotted Monday partaking in public Memorial Day remembrances without a face mask, he hopped on Twitter to retweet a Fox News commentator criticizing former vice president Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, for wearing one.

“This might help explain why Trump doesn’t like to wear a mask in public,” Brit Hume, Fox News’s senior political analyst, tweeted Monday evening, sharing a picture of Biden at a Delaware veterans memorial earlier that day. In the photo, which documents Biden’s first public appearance since mid-March, most of the 77-year-old’s face is obscured by a black mask and a pair of aviator sunglasses.

Hume’s tweet sparked instant backlash from critics on the left. By early Tuesday, Hume was stilltrending on Twitter as detractors questioned whether he valued Biden looking “cool” more than encouraging efforts to slow the spread of the potentially deadly novel coronavirus that has now killed more than 97,000 Americans. Continue reading.

DFL Party Announces 2020 Virtual State Convention with Vice President Biden as Keynote Speaker

SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA – Today, the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party is announcing its state convention speaking program featuring Vice President Biden as the keynote speaker, a robust set of online training programs and virtual panel discussions, and the convention’s theme: Minnesota Together.

The convention’s agenda will be as follows: Continue reading “DFL Party Announces 2020 Virtual State Convention with Vice President Biden as Keynote Speaker”

Trump’s biggest deficit against Biden: Empathy

Washington Post logoPresident Trump’s coronavirus response has been one marked by an inordinate balance between credit-seeking and empathy. A Washington Post review last month of his coronavirus task force briefings showed Trump spent 10 times more time praising himself and his administration (45 minutes out of 13 hours) for its response than expressing condolences to victims (4 ½ minutes). And he spent even more time attacking and blaming others (two hours).

On Friday, Trump seemed to try to rectify this, to some degree. In a tweet, he announced that flags would be flown at half-staff over the next three days “in memory of the Americans we have lost to the CoronaVirus.”<

Donald J. Trump

✔@realDonaldTrump

I will be lowering the flags on all Federal Buildings and National Monuments to half-staff over the next three days in memory of the Americans we have lost to the CoronaVirus….

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It’s clearly something he needs to work on — and something that could prove an electoral liability. Continue reading.

Where Are They?’: Biden Criticizes G.O.P. Over Trump’s Firing of Inspectors General

New York Times logoAt a virtual round table discussion, the former vice president said that defending the independent watchdogs “used to be a hobbyhorse for Republican senators.”

Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. on Wednesday blasted the Republican response to President Trump’s firings of a string of inspectors general in recent weeks, suggesting that in another era there would have been louder bipartisan criticism for ousting watchdogs.

His remarks, part of a virtual round table aimed at a Wisconsin audience, came several days after the president ousted Steve A. Linick, who led the office of the inspector general at the State Department — the latest inspector general Mr. Trump has removed.

The White House has said Mr. Trump fired Mr. Linick at the urging of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and Democrats have opened an investigation. Mr. Biden spoke in forceful terms about his disappointment in some of his former Republican colleagues. Continue reading.

Senate Republicans issue first subpoena in Biden-Burisma probe

The Hill logoSenate Republicans issued their first subpoena on Wednesday as part of wide-ranging investigations tied to the Obama administration, deepening a battle in Congress with implications for this fall’s presidential race.

The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted along party lines to issue a subpoena for Blue Star Strategies, a firm with ties to Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), the chairman of the panel, has homed in on the U.S. firm as he probes Hunter Biden‘s work for Burisma Holdings, where Biden — the son of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden— was a member of the board until he stepped down in 2019. Continue reading.

Joe Biden: How the White House coronavirus response presents us with a false choice

Washington Post logoThe coronavirus, to date, has taken the lives of more than 79,000 Americans. One of every 5 U.S. workers has filed for unemployment — with the unemployment rate now the highest since the Great Depression. It is an extraordinary moment — the kind that begs for urgent, steady, empathetic, unifying leadership.

But instead of unifying the country to accelerate our public health response and get economic relief to those who need it, President Trump is reverting to a familiar strategy of deflecting blame and dividing Americans. His goal is as obvious as it is craven: He hopes to split the country into dueling camps, casting Democrats as doomsayers hoping to keep America grounded and Republicans as freedom fighters trying to liberate the economy.

It’s a childish tactic — and a false choice that none of us should fall for. Continue reading.

What Joe Biden Actually Did in Ukraine

New York Times logoWhen Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2014, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. pressed President Barack Obama to take decisive action, and fast, to make Moscow “pay in blood and money” for its aggression. The president, a Biden aide recalled, was having none of it.

Mr. Biden worked Mr. Obama during their weekly private lunches, imploring him to increase lethal aid, backing a push to ship FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank missiles to Kiev. The president flatly rejected the idea and dispatched him to the region as an emissary, cautioning him “about not overpromising to the Ukrainian government,” Mr. Biden would later write in a memoir.

So, Mr. Biden threw himself into what seemed like standard-issue vice-presidential stuff: prodding Ukraine’s leaders to tackle the rampant corruption that made their country a risky bet for international lenders — and pushing reform of Ukraine’s cronyism-ridden energy industry.

View the complete November 10 article by Glenn Thrush and Kennth P. Vogel on The New York Times website here.

Trump and Giuliani’s efforts to find ‘dirt’ on Joe Biden went way beyond his son’s involvement with Ukrainian energy company: report

AlterNet logoMuch of the coverage of the Ukraine scandal has focused heavily on Hunter Biden’s involvement with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, and how President Donald Trump hoped to use that involvement to harm a political adversary: former Vice President Joe Biden, Hunter Biden’s father. But Ryan Goodman and Alex Potcovaru, in an October 21 article for Just Security, stress that there is another crucial element to Ukrainegate: Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani’s efforts to prove an “unfounded” conspiracy theory that Joe Biden and other Democrats, in 2016, tried to harm Trump’s presidential campaign via Ukraine.

“Giuliani’s unfounded conspiracy theory is that Biden removed Ukraine prosecutor General Viktor Shokin and approved the new prosecutor, Yuriy Lutsenko, as part of an effort to ‘frame (2016 Trump campaign manager) Paul Manafort and the Trump campaign in the 2016 election,” Goodman and Potcovaru explain. “Giuliani asserts, without evidence, that the new prosecutor dropped a case against an organization that had produced information in coordination with the Democrats and U.S. officials to taint Manafort. This conspiracy theory fits in with the overall idea that Russia was not behind the 2016 election interference, but instead, the real collusion involved Ukrainian and Democratic operatives.” Continue reading “Trump and Giuliani’s efforts to find ‘dirt’ on Joe Biden went way beyond his son’s involvement with Ukrainian energy company: report”