Joe Biden returns to the field Tuesday for the first time since the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, an event that is forcing the US president to balance his own calls to calm the political climate with the need to wage an offensive campaign against his rival.
In the middle of the Republican convention in Milwaukee, where Donald Trump was applauded by an excited crowd, Joe Biden wants to try to rally the support of the African-American electorate to defend his faltering candidacy.
He is scheduled to speak in Las Vegas at an event hosted by the nation’s leading civil rights group, the NAACP.
The 81-year-old Democratic president is also scheduled to record an interview with Black Entertainment Television (BET), which primarily targets African-American audiences.
After the assassination attempt on Donald Trump on Saturday, Joe Biden canceled a trip to Texas on Monday, but went ahead with his visit to Nevada, where he narrowly won over his Republican rival in 2020.
The trip comes amid a tense atmosphere among Democrats, who are continuing their plan to fast-track the nomination of Joe Biden as the party’s official nominee, so that it can take place before the Democratic convention scheduled for August.
And this comes as some are calling for the convention to be postponed amid concerns about Biden’s health and ability to serve another term. Calls to withdraw his candidacy have been growing within his own camp since a disastrous performance in a debate in late June against Donald Trump.
While those calls briefly died down after the shooting of the former Republican president, tensions remain high, fueled by a Joe Biden lagging in the polls.
” I am old “
His supporters who attended the NAACP rally on Tuesday, however, are still vocal in their support. “We’re moving forward with Biden,” said Sydney Martin, 65, denouncing calls for the president to withdraw from the race as “a ruse by the enemy,” he said.
More nuanced, Asha Holmes, 28, says she “hoped that Kamala [Harris, la vice-présidente] would try to get into the race this year instead of having [Biden] for a second term”.
Joe Biden admitted he “failed” during the debate with his rival, but blamed jet lag and a cold. In an interview with NBC on Monday, he tried to appear combative.
“I’m old,” he conceded. “But I’m only three years older than Trump, for one thing. And for another, my mental acuity is pretty damn good.”
He also defended his rhetoric toward the former president, after Republicans accused him of fueling a dangerous climate that led to the shooting of Donald Trump, who was injured in the ear.
Mr Biden acknowledged he made a “mistake” in calling for “targeting” Donald Trump at a donor event just days before the assassination attempt on him. “I meant, focus on him, what he’s doing,” the Democrat said.
But he did not deny the essence of his statement, which is to present the former White House resident as a danger to American democracy.
“How do you talk about the threat to our democracy, which is real when a president says things like he says? You just don’t say something just because it might incite someone?” he asked.
The motive of 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who opened fire Saturday at a Donald Trump campaign rally in Pennsylvania, remains a mystery, before being shot dead. One spectator was killed and two others were seriously injured.