Democratic White House candidate Joe Biden on Wednesday accused Donald Trump of throwing the United States into recession over his “mismanagement” of the COVID-19 pandemic, attacking the Republican president on the subject of the economy, one of its rare strengths in opinion polls.
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“This recession was caused by the mismanagement of Donald Trump. He is therefore unfit to hold office, ”said Joe Biden, from the town of Warren near Detroit, the American cradle of the automobile.
“How many families don’t have their loved ones around the table tonight because of its failure?” He continued in front of a handful of guests gathered in the open air, in front of the local headquarters of the powerful union of auto workers UAW. “It’s more than shameful. It is a breach of his duties ”.
This is the first trip by former vice president to Barack Obama to the key state of Michigan since winning the Democratic nomination in April.
Sign of the weight of this pivotal state, which will be able to determine the election by switching to one candidate or the other, Donald Trump will in turn be in Michigan on Thursday evening, for a speech in front of his supporters.
In 2016, the Republican billionaire won the Midwestern state by surprise, with a lead of just 0.23 percentage point. Michigan had not voted for a Republican since 1988.
If the popularity of Donald Trump stagnates at low levels and his management of the pandemic is strongly criticized, voters say, on the other hand, to trust the former businessman more than Joe Biden on the economy.
The former Democratic vice-president was therefore careful to attack the Republican’s record, recalling that a General Motors factory in Warren had closed in 2019 while Donald Trump had promised in 2016, in the same city, that he would prevent any closure if elected.
“I bet people here weren’t so much comforted by Trump’s empty promises,” Joe Biden said.
The novel coronavirus has claimed nearly 190,000 lives in the United States and hit the economy hard. If unemployment fell more than expected in August, its level remains far from that before the pandemic, in February: the job market then had 11.5 million additional jobs.