Former Vice President Joe Biden, who is scheduled to speak in southwest Pennsylvania on Monday, is asking voters if they’re safe in Donald Trump’s America.
The question is an effort to turn President Trump’s words against him. Trump has recently pushed a law-and-order agenda, supporting police departments across the country and their actions against citizens. Biden’s speech will combine the country’s coronavirus death toll and subsequent economic downturn with allegations by Democrats that Trump has a tendency to “fan the flames of division and encourage chaos in our cities.”
At the same time, Biden will pitch himself to the country as a Band-Aid that can “calm tensions and heal this country.”
In recent days Biden issued his most forceful condemnation yet of protest violence, stating that he “unequivocally” denounces violence on both the left and right and challenging Trump to do the same.
“The job of the president is to lower the temperature,” Biden said according to Forbes, accusing Trump of “fanning the flames of hate” and of a “failure to call on his supporters to stop seeking conflict.”
Biden’s comments come after Trump and Republicans spent much of last week creating their own narrative about Biden’s agenda as part of the Republican National Convention.
Speakers at the RNC called Biden an environmentalist extremist, in favor of government-run healthcare, defunding the police, and dismantling the border wall—none of which is true.
Trump’s lackluster coronavirus response and the corresponding effects have left him vulnerable as the U.S. confirmed death toll draws closer to 200,000 and the unemployment rate still sits above 10%. According to the RealClearPolitics average, Trump’s coronavirus disapproval rating is near 60%.
A Yahoo News/YouGov poll released Saturday shows not only do more people think a Trump reelection would make the country less safe, but 46% of respondents said Trump is “the source of chaos” in the country.