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Trump, Biden Lock Horns in Battleground States 21 Days from Election
President Donald Trump told a Pennsylvania crowd Tuesday that he’s fighting “Marxists” and “lunatics” while his Democratic challenger Joe Biden accused him in Florida, another key electoral state, of having treated Americans as “expendable” during the Covid-19 pandemic.
With only 21 days until the November 3 election and badly down in the polls, Trump fired every lurid exaggeration about the Democrats and insult about Biden’s mental state that he has in his arsenal.
He said Biden was “choking like a dog” during their televised debate, called him mentally “shot,” and claimed the Democratic frontrunner was the pawn of communists.
“He is handing control to the socialists and Marxists and left-wing extremists,” Trump told the large, raucous crowd in Johnstown. “He can’t stand up to the lunatics running his party.”
Going even further on his long-running narrative that 77-year-old Biden is too frail for the presidency, Trump, 74, tweeted a crudely faked picture purporting to show Biden in a wheelchair, surrounded by elderly wheelchair-bound people in a room.
“Biden for president,” the caption said, with “p” struck out to change the word to “resident.”
The mocking presentation of the infirm elderly was somewhat surprising given the president’s apparently growing problems in retaining the loyalty of seniors, an important electoral force.
– ‘Crush the virus’ –
In Johnstown, Trump reprised the outsider image that he developed for his surprise 2016 victory, telling the crowd that he was combating a “selfish and corrupt political class” back in Washington.
But even as he delighted the crowd with his greatest rhetorical hits, Trump once more showed that despite his poor poll showing he has no intention of trying to reach across to Democrats in a deeply divided nation.
“This will end up being a large-scale version of Venezuela if they get in,” he said, painting a nightmarish anti-immigrant vision of a country where Democrats give free hospital care to “illegal aliens” while “decimating Medicare and destroying your Social Security.”
The coronavirus, which has claimed more than 215,000 lives in America, was largely an afterthought, even if Trump himself was hospitalized for three nights after testing positive at the start of October.
“We’re going to crush the virus very quickly. It’s happening already,” Trump said, despite a swath of the United States now reporting large increases in infections.
“Soon it’s going to be perfecto,” he said.
– ‘Erratic’ president –
Hours earlier, Biden was in Florida holding one of the much smaller events typical of his low-key campaign, zooming in on Trump’s handling of the pandemic.
Arguably even more important on election day than Pennsylvania, Florida is a battleground state that Trump won in 2016 but where polls currently show Biden ahead.
Biden courted the elderly, telling an event at a retirement center in Pembroke Pines, north of Miami, that Trump has “never been focused on you.”
“His handling of this pandemic has been erratic, just like his presidency has been,” he said.
Biden recalled that Trump once remarked that the virus — which has taken a particularly brutal toll among the elderly — “infects virtually nobody.”
“You are expendable, you are forgettable, you are virtually nobody. That’s how he sees this,” said Biden, who, unlike Trump, wore a face mask throughout his remarks.
Trump was also in Florida on Monday night for his first rally since recovering from his bout with Covid-19. This week he will be heading out to Iowa and North Carolina, then back to Florida and Georgia.
– Swing states –
Iowa and Georgia were two states which Trump won handily in 2016 but polls show tight races in both three weeks ahead of the November 3 election.
And a poll of likely Florida voters released on Tuesday by Florida Atlantic University (FAU) gave Biden a 51 percent to 47 percent lead there.
“Joe Biden continues to be competing better for senior voters than Hillary Clinton did in 2016, and that could be the difference in Florida,” said Kevin Wagner, a political science professor at FAU.
Forty-four percent of those polled said Trump’s handling of the coronavirus crisis was good or excellent while 50 percent said it was poor or terrible.
Trump has brushed aside the polls, calling them “fake.”
Texas, meanwhile, became the latest state to start early voting, which has been taking place at a record pace so far in the states that allow it, according to Michael McDonald, a professor at the University of Florida who tracks early voting.
According to McDonald’s US Elections Project, voters have cast 11.86 million ballots so far in the states that report early voting.
(AFP)
By Eric Elezuo
The Presidency has announce that President Bola Tinubu will be departing Abuja to (Wednesday) for Paris, France, on a ‘short working visit’.
A statement to the effect, signed and released by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, was however silent on the shape of international relationship the working visiting the president was embarking on will take, but noted that Tinubu will use the ‘retreat’ to review his administration’s mid-term performance and assess key milestones, as well as review progress of ongoing reforms.
While acknowledging that the president will spend ‘about a fortnight’ on the trip, the statement added he would supervise administration while away.
The statement in details
PRESIDENT TINUBU TO EMBARK ON WORKING VISIT TO PARIS
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will depart for Paris, France, today on a short working visit.
During the visit, the President will appraise his administration’s mid-term performance and assess key milestones.
He will also use the retreat to review the progress of ongoing reforms and engage in strategic planning ahead of his administration’s second anniversary.
This period of reflection will inform plans to deepen ongoing reforms and accelerate national development priorities in the coming year.
Recent economic strides reinforce the President’s commitment to these efforts, as evidenced by the Central Bank of Nigeria reporting a significant increase in net foreign exchange reserves to $23.11 billion—a testament to the administration’s fiscal reforms since 2023 when net reserves were $3.99 billion.
While away, President Tinubu will remain fully engaged with his team and continue to oversee governance activities.
He will return to Nigeria in about a fortnight.
President Bola Tinubu has sacked the Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, Mele Kyari.
Tinubu also dissolved its board, removing the Chairman, Chief Pius Akinyelure.
Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President on information and strategy, announced this in a statement on Wednesday.
Onanuga said Tinubu invoked his powers under section 59(2) of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021 to carry out the sweeping reconstitution, citing the need for “enhanced operational efficiency, restored investor confidence, and a more commercially viable NNPC”.
He announced that Tinubu has now approved a new 11-man board, which has Engineer Bashir Bayo Ojulari as the Group CEO and Ahmadu Musa Kida as non-executive chairman.
According to the statement, “Adedapo Segun, who replaced Umaru Isa Ajiya as the chief financial officer last November, has been appointed to the new board by President Tinubu.
“Six board members, non-executive directors, represent the country’s geopolitical zones. They are Bello Rabiu, North West, Yusuf Usman, North East, and Babs Omotowa, a former managing director of the Nigerian Liquified Natural Gas( NLNG), who represents North Central.
“President Tinubu appointed Austin Avuru as a non-executive director from the South-South, David Ige as a Non-executive director from the South West, and Henry Obih as a non-executive director from the South East.
“Mrs Lydia Shehu Jafiya, permanent secretary of the Federal Ministry of Finance, will represent the ministry on the new board, while Aminu Said Ahmed will represent the Ministry of Petroleum Resources.”
He added said that all the appointments are effective today, April 2.
President Donald Trump claimed on Monday that Americans want him to run for another term, a step banned by the US constitution but which he continues describing as possible.
“People are asking me to run,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when asked about the possibility of a third term.
“I don’t know. I never looked into it. They do say there’s a way you can do it, but I don’t know about that, but I have not looked into it,” Trump said.
Trump was asked about the prospect of a race pitting him against former president Barack Obama, who served two terms.
“That would be a good one, I’d like that,” Trump said.
“I’m not joking” about the idea of seeking a third term, Trump said Sunday in an interview with NBC News.
The 78-year-old Republican served from 2017 to 2021 and began his second term in the White House on January 20.
The first US president, George Washington, established a tradition by not seeking a third term after completing his second one in 1797.
But this tradition was not formally added to the US constitution until after World War II, with the ratification of the 22nd amendment in 1951.
It says no one can be elected president more than two times.
