GREENWICH, Conn. (AP) – President Joe Biden has taken to task his predecessor and likely opponent in the November election, Donald Trump, after he was convicted by a Manhattan jury of 34 crimes related to hush money payments. He said Monday evening that “this campaign has entered uncharted territory.”
At a fundraiser in Greenwich, Connecticut, Biden said the former president “wants you to believe it’s all rigged.” Nothing is less true.’
Echoing comments he made last week in response to the verdict at the White House, Biden said: “It’s reckless and dangerous and downright irresponsible for someone to say falsification has occurred just because you don’t like the verdict. ”
He added that the justice system was a core of American democracy and “we should never allow anyone to tear it down.”
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, was convicted during his 2016 presidential campaign on all charges related to a scheme to pay off porn actor Stormy Daniels, who said the two had sex. The former president branded the verdict as politically motivated and blamed Biden – while trying to make himself a political martyr in the eyes of supporters, suggesting that if this could happen to him, similar things could happen to them.
As he did last week, Biden noted that Trump’s case was a state case rather than a federal case, that the case was heard by a jury selected in the same way as all juries across the country, and that it took five weeks to evidence was. He said the verdict was unanimous and that Trump could appeal.
But Biden went further on Monday, accusing Trump of equating the justice system with elections. He said the former president “attacked both the judiciary and the electoral system as rigged.”
“Nothing could be more dangerous for the country, more dangerous for American democracy,” Biden said.
The president made no mention of the federal gun trial against his son Hunter, which began Monday in Delaware. Instead, he said, “Here’s what’s becoming clearer and clearer every day: the threat Trump poses in his second term would be greater than in his first.”
“This is not the same Trump who was elected in 2016,” Biden said. “He’s worse.”
Biden attended a fundraiser hosted by former HBO CEO Richard Plepler, starring Shonda Rhimes, who created television hits such as “Bridgerton,” “Scandal and “Grey’s Anatomy.” Biden further referenced a television ad his campaign produced in which another of his celebrity backers, actor Robert De Niro, talks and claims that Trump “snapped” after losing to Biden in 2020.
“Something snapped in this man — it really did — when he lost in 2020,” Biden said, suggesting the former president was “unhinged” and the driving force behind a gang of his supporters who took over the U.S. on Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol was overrun.
“He can’t accept the fact that he lost, it’s literally driving him crazy,” Biden said.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Biden continued his sharp criticism, saying the former president wants to “end the Constitution” and “says if he loses there will be a bloodbath in America.”
“What kind of man is this?” Biden asked.
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Weissert reported from Washington.
