LAS VEGAS — US President Democrat Joe Biden Biden, held his first campaign event on Tuesday after the attempted assassination of his Republican rival Donald Trump, whom he lashed out at for his history and comments while calling on the country to remain calm.
At a meeting organised in Las Vegas (west) by the NAACP, the main civil rights association in the United States, the 81-year-old Democratic president called for a lower temperature in a United States on edge following Saturday’s attack on Trump.
He called for a ban on the type of weapon used in the attempted killing of the newly nominated Republican presidential candidate, who was wounded in the right ear.
“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 get rid of them,” the president urged.
He said he was “relieved” that his rival in the November election was doing well after the shooting, which took place at one of his rallies in Pennsylvania.
However, Biden criticized the former president’s record as a “hell for African Americans,” an electorate from which he seeks support to defend his faltering candidacy, whose issue lost strength after the outrage Trump. Democrats are unhappy with Trump’s candidacy after the disastrous presidential debate.
Resuming his attacks after having held back for a few days over the assassination attempt, he also criticized Trump’s reference to “black jobs” during their debate at the end of June, in which the president had a disastrous performance and had difficulty expressing himself clearly.
The trip comes amid a tense atmosphere among Democrats since the duel, who are pressing ahead with their plan to name Biden as the party’s official candidate before the convention scheduled for August.
Democratic convention to be postponed
Some, concerned about the president’s health and ability to win another term, are calling for the party summit to be postponed.
The doubts seemed to subside after the shooting of the Republican, but in reality they persist in the face of Biden’s poor results in the polls.
The president admitted to having made a mistake in the debate, but blamed it on jet lag and a cold.
In an interview with NBC on Monday, he took pains to appear combative.
“I am old,” he acknowledged, “but only three years older than Trump” and with “a fairly good mental acuity,” he justifies his episodes of absence from public.
He also defended his rhetoric against the former president after Republicans accused him of fueling a dangerous climate that led to the shooting of Trump, who was wounded in the ear.
Biden admitted he made a “mistake” by calling for Donald Trump to be “targeted” days before the attempted assassination of his election rival.
“It was a mistake to use the word,” Biden told NBC’s Lester Holt at the White House when asked if he went too far with his narrative. “I meant to put the spotlight on him, on what he’s doing,” the president said.
Biden is traveling at a time when Democrats have been mired in a crisis of confidence over his candidacy for weeks following his devastating debate with Trump. The president’s poor performance last month has inflamed voters’ concerns about his age, fitness for office and ability to defeat Trump.
Source: With information from AFP