Amidst the national tumult that has erupted following the police murder of a black man named George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the contrast in behavior from presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and actual current President Donald Trump has proven stark. Biden has been delivering repeated public speeches outlining the urgent need for an equitable path forward for the United States that takes the pleas of the protesters into account — and Trump has been mostly hiding out in the White House and tweeting nonsense. This Tuesday, Trump self-confidently insisted on Twitter that Biden has been “politically weak all of his life.” Is that why voters prefer Biden over Trump by huge margins in poll after poll on both the national and swing state level?
tfw you've been president for almost four years and the country is exploding, falling apart and gasping for air in the ICU. https://t.co/duIx1kjU2f
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) June 2, 2020
Trump tweeted:
‘Sleepy Joe has been in politics for 40 years, and did nothing. Now he pretends to have the answers. He doesn’t even know the questions. Weakness will never beat anarchists, looters or thugs, and Joe has been politically weak all of his life. LAW & ORDER!’
Sleepy Joe has been in politics for 40 years, and did nothing. Now he pretends to have the answers. He doesn’t even know the questions. Weakness will never beat anarchists, looters or thugs, and Joe has been politically weak all of his life. LAW & ORDER!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 2, 2020
It’s laughable for Trump to insist that Biden has done “nothing.” What has Trump done? He’s trying to run on the fumes of inane spectacles like his recent march from the White House to St. Johns Church in D.C., whose immediate vicinity was flooded with reported tear gas to make way for the president’s visit. Priests who worked at the church were among those reportedly gassed — this disgrace is Trump’s own legacy.
This tweet attacking Biden as "weak" on "anarchists, looters or thugs" comes exactly 40 minutes after Trump's re-election campaign sent out a press release labeling Biden "the architect of mass incarceration" https://t.co/yjngP397nD
— Ben Jacobs (@Bencjacobs) June 2, 2020
In stark contrast, Biden has made his commitment to a unified front against police brutality loud and clear. His administration would likely support the policy changes needed to make that happen — he was a part of the Obama administration when specialized Department of Justice reviews of troubled local police departments were launched. On his campaign website, he currently insists that he will “expand and use the power of the Justice Department, under authority created by legislation he authored, to address systemic misconduct in police departments and prosecutors’ offices” and “will also invest in public defenders’ offices, eliminate the death penalty and mandatory minimums,” among other proposals. That’s a far cry from the president’s inane tweeting.
Biden, who went out and talked with protesters, is being called weak by a president who cowered in his bunker. https://t.co/X7Tpflltja
— Clyde Haberman (@ClydeHaberman) June 2, 2020
Check out Twitter’s response below:
