Joe Biden warns of Donald Trump trying to ‘steal’ the midterm elections
The former US president urges Americans to vote in a rare public address
Joe Biden has warned of Donald Trump, his presidential successor, attempting to ‘steal’ the midterm elections in November.
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Biden spoke in Colombia, South Carolina on Friday, where party leaders and donors honoured his lifetime achievement in politics.
The address was a rare public speech by Biden since leaving office last year.
Just hours before the Trump administration launched attacks on Iran, Biden asserted that the US is experiencing “dark days”.
At the Columbia Museum of Art, Biden told the crowd that the “battle for the soul of this nation is one that’s never really over”.
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He also used his speech to criticise a potential plan by the Trump administration to implement prohibitive voting requirements ahead of the midterm elections.
Biden said: “Here’s the good news, in America, the power still belongs to the people for now. And the way to show the power is vote, show up and vote. And folks, when we do that, that’s bad news for Donald Trump, and he knows it.
"That’s why he’s trying to pull out more and more barriers – put them up. He’s trying to steal the election, because he knows he can’t win your vote, so he’s going to do everything he can to prevent you from wanting to vote.”
Since leaving office and undergoing treatment for an aggressive form of prostate cancer, Biden has largely stayed out of the public eye.
On Friday, he also criticised Trump’s recent State of the Union address and the intensification of ICE’s immigration crackdown, which in January saw federal agents in Minneapolis kill US citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
He also denounced the fact that Trump didn’t “offer a word of support, even recognition” during his speech to the victims of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who counted Trump among his powerful friends.
Trump’s approval rating currently sits at a historic low.
61 per cent of Americans disapprove of his performance, according to the Associated Press-Norc Center for Public Affairs Research.
Further, most US adults think Trump is moving the country in the wrong direction, according to an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll.