Biden, Harris tout party unity, Trump lays on the insults

LARGO, Maryland – US President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris made an upbeat show of unity on Aug 15 as they held their first joint public event since Ms Harris replaced Mr Biden as the Democratic Party’s candidate in November’s election.

Chants of “Thank you, Joe!” rang out from the audience at a community college in the Maryland suburbs outside Washington.

Mr Biden announced a major deal to reduce medication prices for retirees on social welfare programmes.

But the biggest star was Ms Harris, who has surprised many by uniting the Democratic Party and surging in the polls against Republican Donald Trump since her abrupt entry into the White House race.

“She can make one hell of a president,” Mr Biden said of Ms Harris.

Shortly after the joint appearance, Trump delivered rambling and often angry remarks from his New Jersey golf club, before taking questions from a handful of journalists.

Ms Harris has a “very strong communist lean” and will mean the “death of the American dream”, he said.

The real estate billionaire and scandal-engulfed former president has struggled to pivot his campaign since Mr Biden

dropped out on July 21

amid Democratic concerns that he lacked the stamina at 81 to do the job.

Until then, Trump was rising steadily in the polls, in large part on his message that Mr Biden was losing his mental acuity – a charge that gained currency when the President badly flubbed a televised presidential debate against his predecessor.

At his golf club event, the 78-year-old Trump began by reading lengthy statements from a binder notebook.

Ostensibly scheduled to attack Ms Harris on inflation, with household products piled high on a table next to him, he almost immediately veered off into a series of complaints about the media and insults at Ms Harris, who he said was “not smart”.

Regarding the Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza, Trump said he had told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a July meeting, to “get your victory and get it over with... The killing has to stop”.

Then at a later event with Jewish supporters, Trump turned his fire on Ms Harris, claiming she has “manoeuvred” to get support from “venomous anti-Semites in her party”.

Ms Harris is married to a Jew who, if she wins election, would make history as the first Jewish spouse of a US president – as well as the first man in the role.

Using his trademark inflammatory language, Trump claimed that if Ms Harris wins, “the radical left flag burners and Hamas sympathisers will not just be causing chaos on our streets, they will be running US foreign policy in the White House, and Israel will be gone”.

Biden lame duck

For Mr Biden, the event on Aug 15 was half victory lap, half acknowledgment that he is entering his presidency’s lame duck period.

Ms Harris, 59, is set to be crowned as Democratic nominee at the party convention in Chicago next week.

But she made a display of vice-presidential deference, delivering only short remarks to introduce Mr Biden and stressing that it has been her honour to serve under the “most extraordinary human being”.

“There is a lot of love in this room for our President,” she said to cheers.

Mr Biden appeared energised, drawing cheers when he said the Democrats’ plan was to “beat the hell out of” Republican opponents, and he prompted laughter on pretending not to know Trump’s name – “Donald Dump or Donald whatever”.

The drug prices deal will reduce costs for retirees on 10 key medicines, including treatments for diabetes, heart failure and blood clots.

Americans face the highest prescription drug prices in the world, leaving many people to pay at least partly out of their own pocket, despite already exorbitant insurance premiums.

On Aug 16, Ms Harris will for the first time lay out details of her economic platform.

The US’ first female, Black and South Asian Vice-President is expected largely to stick to Mr Biden’s economic agenda while trying to differentiate herself, avoiding voter wrath over the post-pandemic surge in inflation.

While Trump has long polled more strongly on the economy, a recent poll from the Financial Times and University of Michigan found that voters trust Ms Harris more on the issue, by 42 per cent to 41 per cent.

Trump, who survived an

assassination attempt on July 13

, is now the oldest presidential nominee in US history. AFP