Joe Biden blasted his White House rival, President Trump, over the administration’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic that has killed nearly 200,000 people and statements after the Charlottesville, Virginia, violence three years ago.
The 2020 Democratic nominee and his wife, Jill Biden, joined about 6,000 members of the Jewish community Thursday in a virtual Rosh Hashanah event, a bit over a day before the first of the Jewish High Holidays begins.
The former vice president and 36-year Delaware senator raised familiar themes in excoriating Trump, including the coronavirus pandemic. Biden said Trump has effectively given up and is willing to let people die on his watch in the name of trying to reopen businesses and other establishments in a bid to return to normal.
Trump is “a president who makes us worse, who appeals to the dark side,” Biden said. “We can, and we have to do a lot better.”
As he has before, Biden said Trump’s comments after the 2018 events in Charlottesville, Virginia, are what spurred him to run for president in 2020. Biden, 77, won the Democratic nomination in his third White House bid, dating back to 1987.
Trump’s comments after the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville were seen by critics as implying moral equivalence between white supremacist marchers and protesters against them.
Biden ended his talk to the Jewish community with a wish to move on from the prior year on the Hebrew calendar.
“It’s got to be a better year than last year,” he said.
Biden’s message came a day after Trump addressed members of the American Jewish community, in a 20-minute phone call. Trump largely used the call to argue for his reelection. He also listed what the United States was doing for Israel, saying it paid $4.2 billion in annual assistance to the country.
