US President Joe Biden delivers remarks during a campaign event at Girard College in Philadelphia, Pa on Wednesday May 29, 2024. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
President Joe Biden had some choice words for Donald Trump during his Monday remarks at a campaign event, leaning into the verdict in Trump’s hush money trials and calling the former president a “diminished man,” “convicted felon” and “white collar crook,” NBC News reported.
“Folks, the campaign entered uncharted territory last week,” Biden said at a fundraiser in Greenwich, Connecticut, according to a White House pool reporter. “For the first time in American history, a former president that is a convicted felon is now seeking the office of the presidency.”
Biden added: “But as disturbing as that is, more damaging is the all-out assault Donald Trump is making on the American system of justice.”
He is not wrong. Trump confirmed during a Fox News interview Sunday that his “revenge will be success.”
Since his verdict, Trump has conveyed his purported shock at the jury’s decision and maintained that the whole trial is a political ploy to slow him down on the campaign trial. Despite an utter lack of evidence, he has falsely claimed that the case was “all done by Biden and his people,” CNN reported. (“I didn’t know I was that powerful,” Biden told reporters.)
Biden’s remarks on Monday were the first time he brought up Trump’s conviction in a campaign setting. He noted that Trump is claiming the justice system is “rigged,” mirroring his rhetoric about elections.
“Now, he will be given an opportunity to appeal,” the president said, arguing that it is “reckless and dangerous for anyone to say that [a trial] is rigged just because they don’t like the verdict.”
“Nothing could be more dangerous for the country, more dangerous for American democracy,” Biden added.
Reacting to the remarks, a Trump spokesperson on Fox News said it was “shameful” for Biden to describe Trump as a “convicted felon.” Noted the Biden campaign: “Trump is, in fact, a convicted felon.”
Trump’s press secretary called it “shameful” for the Biden campaign to call Trump a convicted felon, true or not.
