A day after what he admitted was a subdued debate performance against former President Donald Trump, Joe Biden let loose a forceful condemnation of his opponent in the North Carolina capital.
Conceding that at 81 “I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to,” Biden sought to recover from what was widely perceived to be a poor showing in Atlanta against Trump on Thursday.
“But … I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong and I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done. And I know, like millions of Americans know, when you get knocked down, you get back up.”
Speaking to hundreds of supporters in what is widely considered a critical battleground state come November, Biden spent little time addressing North Carolina-specific issues. Instead, he focused on using his state fairgrounds pulpit to loudly and vigorously push back on the “lies” and “hyperbolic statements” Trump offered up at the debate.
He dinged Trump for facilitating the overthrow of Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed the right to abortion care at the federal level, something Trump publicly embraced on Thursday. Trump insisted that returning the decision to restrict or allow abortions to individual states was a popular outcome of his having appointed three conservative justices to the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Donald Trump thinks overturning Roe v. Wade was a beautiful thing,” Biden said. “I think it was a nightmare. I really made it clear again last night and if you elect me and Kamala (Harris) … we will make Roe v. Wade the law of the land again.”
Biden was buttered up by prominent North Carolina Democrats, including Gov. Roy Cooper in full campaign mode, though he is not currently running for office.
“Do we want to be Donald Trump’s America where the government is nothing more than a tool for revenge and retribution?” Cooper asked the crowd ahead of Biden’s remarks. “Do we want to be Donald Trump’s America where the President is a convicted felon whose lies come even too fast for the fact checkers? Of course we don’t. Do we want to be Donald Trump’s America where the President tries to overthrow democracy and says if he’s elected he’ll be a dictator?”
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper speaks at a Biden rally Friday at the State Fairgrounds in Raleigh. (Photo by Dan Parsons)
“Folks, four years ago, we told Donald Trump ‘You’re fired!’” Cooper added.
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, who is running a tight campaign for Governor against Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, a Trump-aligned Republican, brought the campaign rhetoric down to the state level. Still, the state is a battlefield in the national culture war over abortion rights and other social issues, several of which Stein addressed.
“I want you to know, as your next Governor, I will veto any further restrictions on women’s reproductive freedom,” Stein said, alluding to both the Republican introduced ban on abortions after 12 weeks of pregnancy and his opponent’s stated desire to outlaw abortion in North Carolina under any circumstances including rape and incest.
As the state’s top law enforcement officer, Stein claimed to have cleared the “largest backlog of untested rape kits so we are now delivering justice for victims.” He also defended “women’s right to choose and people’s right to vote.”
In a contest no less contentious and vitriolic as the one for President, Stein said Robinson wants to wage “job-killing culture wars” as Governor and that “his vision is one of division and hate.”
“He says truly awful things about other human beings,” Stein said. “He calls public school teachers wicked people, demons, says that gay people are filth and even worse than that. He mocks school shootings. … He wants to slash – that’s his word, not mine – school funding. He wants to make it harder for people to vote. … He is a self-described conspiracy theorist. He denies the 2020 election results. He even denies the Holocaust.”
“Friends, we must deny him the governorship,” Stein added.
Biden rolled up the event by appealing to American history. Unlike other nations founded on religion, monarchy or cults of personality, the United States was founded on an “idea that everyone is created equal,” he said.
“Trump is a genuine threat to this nation,” Biden said. “He is a threat to our freedom, a threat to our democracy and is literally a threat to everything America stands for. … I’ll be damned if in the year 2024, just two years before the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence, I’ll let Donald Trump walk away from it.”
“The choice is simple,” Biden said. “Donald Trump will destroy democracy. I will defend it.”
