Biden Hits Back at Trump's Crack That He 'Deserted' Pennsylvania
Biden Hits Back at Trump's Crack That He 'Deserted' Pennsylvania
(Bloomberg) -- Joe Biden criticized Donald Trump as out of touch with “working people” during a fundraiser Tuesday, after Trump said the Democratic candidate had “deserted” his native Pennsylvania when his family moved to Delaware during his childhood.
Biden said his family “left for a reason he couldn’t possibly understand” and questioned Trump’s credibility in claiming he was “concerned about working people.”
“My dad left because when coal died, he was a white collar worker, there were no jobs,” Biden told attendees at the fundraiser outside Orlando, hosted by personal injury lawyer and medical marijuana activist John Morgan.
“Now like thousands of people he had to leave and go somewhere to do better for his family,” Biden said.
Series of Jabs
Biden has looked to capitalize on remarks the president made during a rally Monday night in Montoursville, Pennsylvania, in which he said the Scranton-born candidate was “not from Pennsylvania.”
The state -- a longtime Democratic stronghold that narrowly voted for Trump in 2016 -- is a key battleground in the 2020 election and central to Democrats’ hopes to retake the White House.
“He left you for another state, and he didn’t take care of you, because he didn’t take care of your jobs,” Trump told the crowd. “He let other countries come in and rip off America. That doesn’t happen anymore.”
Since then, Biden has sent email and social media fundraising messages seizing on the remark to suggest Trump can’t relate to working class families who are forced to move after layoffs.
The dustup was the latest in a series of jabs between the president and his leading Democratic challenger. They suggest Trump is concerned that Biden could pose a threat to his hold on Rust Belt states that elevated him to the White House -- and that Biden, who faces a large field of challengers, is eager to define his campaign as a conflict with the man he’d face in the general election.
Trump on Monday also attacked the former U.S. vice president for minimizing the economic threat posed by China, and said the Beijing government wants Biden to get elected.
“They want Biden so that China can continue to make $500 billion dollars a year and more ripping off the United States,” said Trump, who’s in the middle of a deepening trade conflict that has rattled the Chinese economy.
Biden downplayed the economic challenges posed by China on May 1 while campaigning in Iowa City, Iowa, drawing criticism from some of the Democrats challenging him for the party’s nomination.
China Threat
“China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man,” Biden said, according to CNN. “You know, they’re not bad folks, folks. But guess what, they’re not -- they’re not competition for us.”
But on Tuesday, Biden characterized China as more of a threat, saying the Asian nation is looking to earn a technological advantage.
“China is going to try to own AI. China is in a position where they’re going to try to go to 5G faster than anyone, they’re investing so much,” he said. “China is going to change the nature of the internet.”
Biden went on to say that Trump’s focus on “old grudges” and “tweet storms” meant the U.S. might be left behind on Chinese tech development.
--With assistance from Alyza Sebenius.
To contact the reporter on this story: Justin Sink in Washington at jsink1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, John Harney, Karen Leigh
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