Global Courant 2023-04-25 16:22:11
As President Biden announced his bid for re-election Tuesday morning, former president and Republican 2024 contender Donald Trump welcomed Biden into the race with a blistering indictment of the current president’s record.
“You could take the five worst presidents in American history and put them together, and in just a few years they wouldn’t have done the damage Joe Biden did to our nation. Not even close,” Trump said in a statement.
Broadly speaking, Trump outlined the attack routes Republicans can use against Biden, attacked the president’s handling of the economy and inflation, rampant illegal immigration, disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan and more, and called Biden “the most corrupt president in American history’.
Trump blamed inflation for Biden’s “socialist spending disaster”. He called American cities a “dumping ground” for illegal immigrants, and said violent criminals “are being released en masse from prison without retaliation of any kind, while law enforcement officers are being deployed against law-abiding conservatives or Republicans.” Trump nodded to the culture wars, saying that “our children are being indoctrinated and maimed by left-wing freaks and zealots,” while the military has “woke up.”
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Former President Trump addresses guests at the 2023 NRA-ILA Leadership Forum on April 14, 2023 in Indianapolis. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
The former president accused his successor of humiliating America on the world stage and claimed that the Russian invasion of Ukraine would not have happened if he was still in office. “Joe Biden has led us to the brink of World War III,” Trump said.
“With such a disastrous and failed presidency, it is almost inconceivable that Biden would even think about running for re-election,” Trump said.
Early Tuesday morning, Biden announced that he and Vice President Kamala Harris will seek re-election in a video titled “Freedom.”
“Freedom. Personal freedom is fundamental to who we are as Americans. There is nothing more important. Nothing is holier,” the 80-year-old Biden said in the video. “That has been the job of my first term: to fight for our democracy. This should not be a red or blue issue.”
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President Biden delivers remarks on the economy at an International Union of Operating Engineers Local 77 Union training facility in Accokeek, Maryland, on April 19, 2023. Biden announced his candidacy for re-election on Tuesday, on the four-year anniversary of his 2020 presidential campaign announcement. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)
In his video, which opened with footage of the January 6 Capitol riot, Biden described the 2024 election as a choice between “more freedom or less freedom, more rights or less.” His words suggest that the Biden campaign will focus on Democratic opposition to efforts by Republicans to limit access to abortion, ban transgender medical treatments for minors and pass election integrity laws, which they have dubbed voter suppression laws.
Biden also spoke of America as a country of “good and decent people,” a country that “believes in fairness and respect and treats each other with dignity.” These were themes of the president’s successful 2020 campaign, in which Biden defeated Trump 306 to 232 in the Electoral College and garnered a record 81 million votes to Trump’s 74 million.
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Former President Trump, 76, and President Biden, 80, are each competing for their respective parties’ 2024 presidential candidates. (Getty Images)
Trump, 76, said he looks forward to meeting Biden on the “debate stage” where the two US presidents can “compare our records.” That assumes both candidates win their party’s respective presidential primaries.
Biden faces longstanding opposition from environmental activist and vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as well as self-help author Marianne Williamson in the Democratic Primary.
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Trump faces more serious opposition from several established Republican figures, including former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, as well as anticipated campaigns from former Vice President Mike Pence and Florida Governor , Ron DeSantis.
Lawrence Richard of Fox News contributed to this report.
Chris Pandolfo is a writer for Fox News Digital. Send tips to [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @ChrisCPandolfo.
