Donald Trump slams Joe Biden: ‘He’s not all there’
Donald Trump has lashed out at political rival Joe Biden after he suggested the US President would “try and steal” the election.
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US President Donald Trump has pushed back against presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for claiming the commander in chief would try to steal the election.
“Look, Joe’s not all there. Everybody knows. And it’s sad when you look at it and you see it, you see it for yourself. He’s created his own sanctuary city in the basement or wherever he is and he doesn’t come out,” Mr Trump told Fox News.
The US President went on to say, “And certainly if I don’t win, I don’t win.”
Mr Trump reacted to former Vice President Biden telling The Daily Show in the US earlier in the week that “my single greatest concern [is that] this president is going to try to steal this election.
“This is a guy who said that all mail-in ballots are fraudulent … while he sits behind the desk in the Oval Office and writes his mail-in ballot to vote in a primary.”
If Mr Trump refuses to concede, Mr Biden told host Trevor Noah, “I am absolutely convinced they [the military] will escort him from the White House with great dispatch.”
Mr Trump said that losing the election would be a “very sad thing for our country” because Democrats’ policies entail “getting rid of police departments” or “doing nothing” to address the rioting.
Mr Trump also softened the danger of police chokeholds in the interview, even as he hinted that he could support banning the practice during a global outcry against brutality.
“The concept of chokeholds sounds so innocent and so perfect” in “one-on-one” struggles. He added that it becomes “a bit of a different story” if “it’s two-on-one.”
“With that being said, it would be I think a very good thing that, generally speaking, it should be ended,” Mr Trump said.
Asked at what level of government a ban should take place, he said that “in some cases” the law could come from local officials, but the US government could make “very strong recommendations” about the practice.
The killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old unarmed black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes last month, has sparked global demonstrations calling for officials to address police violence and systemic racism. Floyd’s pleas of “I can’t breathe” echoed the words of Eric Garner, a black man killed in New York in 2014 when police held him in a banned chokehold.
As US local and state politicians start to ban the practice in response to Floyd’s death, the federal government will also consider whether to bar chokeholds. Democrats included a ban in sweeping police reform legislation unveiled this week, though it is unclear now if Republicans will back the provision.
Democrats’ bill would make prohibiting chokeholds a condition for receiving federal police funding or grants.
But Mr Trump said that Americans are “getting a glimpse of liberal policies” in the wake of the protests against George Floyd’s police-involved death.
“It was all very liberal mayors, radical left mayors, all of these places,” Mr Trump said.
“It was not that they were not in Republican cities. They were all in cities that frankly, I think I have a chance to win many of those cities. But these were all cities run by radical lefts Democrats. And I think it’s a very sad thing that would happen.”