President Biden launched a series of attacks on former President Donald J. Trump during a speech in Pennsylvania on taxes and economic policy Tuesday, calling his Republican rival a plutocratic puppet who ignored the working class. I drew it like this.
Biden will visit his hometown of Scranton, a battleground state he visits more than any other, to advocate for fairer tax laws, including raising taxes on wealthy people and corporations and using those funds to expand the economy. Showed the vision. and help working families.
But the president returned to Trump multiple times in a speech that signaled the Biden campaign's intention to turn the 2024 election into a referendum on his polarizing Republican opponents. His attacks on the former president took aim at his wealthy upbringing, his friendships with billionaires, and his 2017 tax cuts that unfairly benefited America's upper class.
“Donald Trump sees the world differently than you and I do,” Biden told more than 100 supporters at the Scranton Cultural Center. “In the morning, he wakes up at Mar-a-Lago and thinks to himself, how he wants his billionaire friends to gain power and control and impose their extreme policies on the rest of us. Can we help you?”
Aiming for a sharp contrast, Biden offered a proposal to expand the child tax credit. She offers a $10,000 tax credit to first-time homebuyers. Raise the minimum tax rate for billionaires and large corporations.
“We know the best way to build an economy is not from the top down, but from the middle out and the bottom up,” Biden said. “Because in doing so, the poor move up the ladder, the middle class does well, and the rich still do well. We all do well.”
Trump campaign spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt countered that Biden's plan would benefit Americans.
“President Trump proudly passed the largest tax cut in history,” she said in a statement. “Joe Biden is proposing the largest tax increase in history.”
Throughout his speech, Biden intermixed criticism of Trump with lame jokes about the former president's social media company's declining stock price.
“If the stock price of Trump's company, Truth Social, falls any further, Trump may be better off under my tax plan,” Biden said.
The president's speech begins a three-day speech in Pennsylvania, with speeches scheduled in Pittsburgh on Wednesday and Philadelphia on Thursday. The visit came as Trump appeared in a Manhattan courtroom for the second consecutive day at the start of his first criminal trial — an impressive split screen that the Biden campaign welcomed.
After Biden's State of the Union address last month, his campaign has shifted into general election mode, after a much quieter start to the year. In recent weeks, he has visited every major battleground state. His campaign has partnered with state Democrats to open more than 100 field offices across the country and spent $30 million on advertising, giving him a significant fundraising advantage over Trump. An Arizona court ruling upholding a near-total abortion ban dating back to 1864 also emboldened Democrats.
Those efforts have helped Mr. Biden improve his sluggish poll numbers, with a New York Times/Siena College poll this month showing that Mr. Biden has all but erased Mr. Trump's lead nationally. found. The previous poll showed the president trailing Trump by 5 points. Much of Biden's recovery is due to his improved standing among traditional Democratic voters, suggesting his campaign's messaging efforts may be having an effect.
Still, Mr. Biden faces an uphill battle in convincing Americans that he is a better steward of the nation's economy than Mr. Trump. In the latest Times/Siena poll, 64% of voters said they approve of the way Trump has handled the economy while in office. Only 34% of Americans said the same about Biden, according to the poll.
The tax cuts Trump signed into law in 2017 were unpopular with voters. And while he increased investment in the U.S. economy and modestly raised workers' pay, he fell short of Republican promises and significantly increased the national debt, an academic study found. Many of these tax cuts are set to expire next year.
In his speech, Biden promised that under his plan, people making less than $400,000 would not see their taxes rise.
“I hope you make $400,000,” he told the crowd. “I never did.”
While Mr. Biden spoke, Mr. Trump was sitting about two hours away in a Manhattan courtroom watching the selection of the trial's first jury. Biden has typically avoided mentioning the charges Trump faces in four criminal cases, but his campaign criticized the former president on social media for appearing to fall asleep during Monday's hearing. I ransacked it.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre did not respond to questions about whether Biden was watching Trump's trial or was briefed on it.
“His focus is on the American people,” she said during a briefing with reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Scranton.
But back home, Biden could not escape the anger many Democrats feel over his support for Israel during the Gaza war. As Mr. Biden ascended the steps of his childhood home, a crowd of protesters down the block waved Palestinian flags and shouted “Massacre Joe must go” over a bullhorn.
Biden is scheduled to speak at the United Steelworkers headquarters in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, then visit Philadelphia on Thursday. He narrowly defeated Trump in Pennsylvania in 2020, and a win in the state is critical to his re-election strategy.
Biden's Democratic supporters said his message of economic justice will resonate in Pennsylvania.
“Scranton vs. Fifth Avenue was one of the most successful propositions of the 2020 campaign,” Pennsylvania Representative Brendan Boyle said, referring to the location of Trump Tower in Manhattan. “We’re going to see a lot more of that in this campaign.”