U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden spoke to Perry-area voters for about 20 minutes Sunday evening and touched topics that seemed suitable for a Sunday, including his deep concern for the character of the country and the soul of America.
He was introduced by Christie Vilsack, and former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack followed Biden’s speech with brief remarks of support for the campaign.
Biden, a 36-year U.S. senator from Delaware and eight-year vice president in the administration of President Barack Obama, noted the many policy failures of the current president, but “even worse has been the damage he’s done to the soul of this country,” Biden said. “I mean it — to the soul of this nation, fanning the flames of hatred here at home, fanning the flames.”
He said the current president “treats NATO like it’s a protection racket” while he “embraces thugs and white supremacists all across the country and around the world. And what happens? You see what’s happening now. Our alliances are literally fraying. It’s not a joke.”
The long-time member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations said the damage to the nation’s soul also puts the nation at greater risk in the wider world.
“I believe we can overcome four years of Donald Trump,” Biden said. “With significant difficulty, we can overcome it. But if we give him another four years, I believe it will permanently alter the character of the country at least for several generations. We can’t afford it in this dangerous world we find ourselves in.”
Biden listed some of the world’s danger zones in a brief interview with ThePerryNews.com prior to his speech. The senior statesman cited Putin’s Russia, Xi Jinping’s China and the nations of Latin America as sites of danger to U.S. foreign policy and sites of failure for Trump.
“The first biggest risk is a single man: Vladimir Putin,” Biden said, “and Putin has done everything to make sure that he can, in fact, divide NATO, break up Europe. That’s his whole game plan.”
Biden said Putin is too weak to divide NATO by himself, but Trump is abetting Putin by destabilizing NATO from within.
“What Trump has done is actually damaged our alliance greatly by using it as a protection racket,” Biden said. “I’m serious. He says, ‘We have a sacred obligation under Article Five. Well, if you don’t give more money, we’re not going to keep the commitment.’ He’s threatening to withhold support for the Baltic states if they don’t do A, B or C.”
When the U.S. commitment to NATO appears to weaken, Putin’s hand is strengthened, Biden said.
“When the United States walks away, and (Trump) starts to play games with Ukraine for political reasons and emboldens Russia, look what happens.” Trump was impeached last week by the U.S. House of Representatives on articles of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
A second danger lies in East Asia, Biden said, where the U.S. must project military power in order “to demonstrate to the Chinese but, more importantly, to our friends — South Korea, Japan, Australia, Singapore, Indonesia — that we are not going to allow China to set the rules of the world in terms of access to air space and access to sea lanes. We’re just not going to do it.”
Trump’s policy in East Asia has been a signal failure, Biden said. He drew examples from U.S. relations with China and North Korea and the trade tensions between U.S. allies Japan and South Korea.
“So what does Trump do?” he said. “First of all, he curtails that effort. He has admirals from that region resigning, American admirals, and writing articles about how terrible his policy is. In addition, he has now gotten to the point where we have Japan and South Korea at odds with one another. And he’s giving Kim Jong-un everything he wants, which was legitimacy, by meeting with him. It’s just legitimacy. And he’s reduced the impact of the sanctions against them right across the board.”
In Latin America, the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela and the large number of immigrants leaving that country offered another example of Trump’s failure in foreign policy, Biden said.
“Look what’s happening in Venezuela, four million people,” he said. “What are we doing? We’re talking about doing things that are absolutely crazy on immigration, but in addition to that we’re not doing anything to help deal with Venezuelan immigrants to Columbia, Peru, Panama, which are being overrun. And what’s going to happen? You’re going to see destabilization just like you saw in Europe that ended up at Brexit.”
The European refugee crisis began in 2015, when high numbers of people, mostly Syrian refugees, arrived in European Union (EU) countries from across the Mediterranean Sea or overland through Turkey. The influx of migrants sparked a nativist backlash in some EU countries, including the United Kingdom.
Biden said Obama’s recognition of Cuba “opened up access to all the other Latin American countries that heretofore we had treated almost like they’re subjects, like they’re our backyard. Well, they’re not our backyard. What they are is our front yard. We have the possibility of seeing, from the Arctic down to the tip of Argentina, a democratic and prosperous two continents in the western hemisphere, but we’ve walked away.”
Biden also mentioned the complete absence of human rights from the U.S. overseas agenda, from Trump’s silence on the Chinese detention of 1 million Uyghur Muslims “in essentially concentration camps” and the six months of protests in Hong Kong during which “we’re standing there with our thumb in our ear,” to the president’s apparent fondness for strong-man dictators, such as Putin, Kim Juong-un and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
“Our democracy is in trouble,” Biden told the assembled crowd Sunday night. “I think we’re at a breaking point, and I don’ think that’s hyperbole. I don’t think that’s exaggeration. This is the most important election, no matter how young or old you are. It really and truly is, and you all know it. You know it in your gut.”
He said the “character of the whole country is on the ballot this time around. The character of the country, how the rest of the word views us, what they think of us, whether or not we remain anywhere close to that shining city on the hill.”
Local reaction seemed positive toward the former vice president.
Biden “tugged at our heart and soul,” said one local voter. “He spoke softly and passionately to us.”
Apparently, Biden hasn’t been keeping up on politics! He just got called out for lying about the white supremacist rhetoric last week and he still does it. Really he’s still in the Putin thing? He must think people are extremely stupid and uninformed. Maybe 20 years ago, when there was only the newspaper to keep informed. I can clearly debunk all these talking points by an easy search. He is actually the one who has done all these things over and over. Maybe it’s time to get a nurse and start thinking about just staying indoors. He can speak decently, but who cares when it’s lies and propaganda. Trump may not tug at your heart strings, but he’s the most honest president I’ve seen. Like it or not, that is what people need: truth, not lies, and hate and racist rhetoric. All they do is try to convince you racism is rampant and you need them to stop it. This is why there is more hate crime right now. These power hungry people don’t care about us as long as they can get back to their backroom deals and line the family pockets.
Just another left wing loser with no clue.