By South China Morning Post | Created at 2024-10-23 03:17:09 | Updated at 2024-10-23 05:26:19
2 hours ago
US President Joe Biden took aim at his predecessor on Tuesday, suggesting that global leaders are terrified of what Donald Trump’s return to the White House could do to democratic rule around the world.
“Every international meeting I attend,” Biden said, specifically referencing his whirlwind trip to Germany last week, “They pull me aside - one leader after the other, quietly - and say: ‘Joe, he can’t win’. My democracy is at stake.”
His voice rising, Biden then asked if “America walks away, who leads the world? Who? Name me a country”.
The comments came during what was supposed to be a rather staid speech on health care in New Hampshire.
They were a dose of unfiltered politics at an event otherwise focused on Biden’s policy legacy with the race to replace him just two weeks from concluding. And they made clear that the president also sees not having Trump succeed him as an important piece of how he might go down in history.
