Biden on Trump: “Who in God’s name would have thought we would be here, with this president?”
Former Vice President Joe Biden sharply criticized Donald Trump in an address to Democratic lawmakers Wednesday, saying that the president is doing “great damage” to the United States.
“Who in God’s name would have thought we would be here, at this moment, with this president?” Biden said. “We have a president who is consumed by his political survival. It’s the beginning, the middle and the end. Everything is run through the filter of how it affects Donald Trump in Donald Trump’s mind.”
“He’s in the process of shredding some of our core values,” Biden added. “Institutions that I thought we’d never be talking about are in jeopardy.”
Speaking to Democrats at the U.S. Capitol, Biden promised to work to help take the House — and possibly even the Senate — away from the Republicans in the upcoming November midterms, but declined to say whether he’d run for president in 2020.
His name has been thrown around frequently as a possible contender to face off against Trump in the next presidential election, and he said himself in the spring that he “very well may” make a run for the White House.
Polls over the past year have suggested that Biden, 75, would beat Trump in a head-to-head race. In December, a CNN poll showed that most Americans viewed the former vice president favorably.
But when someone in the crowd Wednesday shouted, “Run, Joe, run!” as the former vice president entered the room, he simply responded, “No, no, no,” according to ABC News.
Biden — a vocal critic of Trump — has criticized the president multiple times in recent days, saying in an MSNBC interview with Andrea Mitchell on Thursday that Trump is “not credible in the things he says.”
“There have been so many misstatements, deliberate misstatements. You look at him and you wonder, ‘What in the heck is he talking about?’” Biden said. “It’s been dumbed down so much it’s almost like it doesn’t matter.”