President Trump attacked Joe Biden as a purveyor of a liberal agenda that would lead America to ruin in his address accepting the 2020 Republican presidential nomination from the White House on Thursday, seeking to present a contrast with the Democratic nominee as he trails him in the polls.
Trump leaned into themes that his campaign has already sought to hammer home, casting Biden as a vessel for socialist policies and issuing a bleak projection about a decline of public safety under a would-be Biden administration.
The president’s 70-minute speech was stocked with blistering attacks on Biden that simultaneously portrayed his opponent as a failed career politician and a “trojan horse” for a radical, left-wing agenda.
He sought to cast the election as a choice between the “American dream” and a “socialist agenda”; between economic prosperity and decline; and law and order or chaos. The president described himself as the defender of traditional American values and warned U.S. culture would be unrecognizable under Democratic control.