Biden slams Trump, asks ‘Who would lead if US stepped off world stage?’

US President Joe Biden slammed Donald Trump, his Republican rival for the presidential election in November, and asked voters a very direct question, “If the US stepped off the world stage, like Trump wants us to do, who would lead the world?”

Addressing a campaign event on Tuesday at the Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Florida, the President said, “Every international meeting I attend with other heads of state — whether it’s the G7, the G20, all these international meetings — before I leave, literally, almost every one will walk up to me and wait to get me in a corner alone and grab my arm and say, ‘You’ve got to win’.”

“Not because of me, but because of the alternative. And they say, ‘Because my democracy depends upon it’, meaning their democracy. So, the whole world is looking, and they’re looking to see how we handle ourselves in this election, not just on whether we win or not but how we handle ourselves,” he was quoted as saying in an official statement published by the White House.

Ahead of the crucial polls, Biden is trying to boost his re-election bid not only in the states that he won in 2020, but also in those where he lost to Trump.

In 2020, Trump defeated Biden in Florida by 3.3 percentage points.

At the campaign event, Biden informed his supporters that his campaign has managed to raise “almost half a billion dollars so far”.

“So far, we have 1.6 million contributors, 550,000 more than we had last time at this stage of the game. But here’s the deal. Of those 1.6 million contributors, 97 per cent contributed less than $200. Think of all the numbers that that means,” the President said.

“We’re in a situation where they have, and as I said, where we raised almost, we’re headed toward half a billion dollars. And that’s all about being able to do the things we have to do in a campaign, especially one that’s as hard-fought as this and one that is so full of lies, so full of misrepresentations being made.”

Of the 23 national polls, Biden said he was “ahead in 10 of them, Trump has been ahead in 8, and we were tied at 5”.

“More importantly, the momentum is clearly in our favour,” he asserted.

“The point I am making is, people are beginning to listen. This is a time when people begin to focus and listen. They have generic impressions up to now, but now they are listening.”