Donald Trump told supporters in Pennsylvania that he was going to "crush" coronavirus "very quickly"
Credit: AP
US Election Article Bar
President Trump told a rally on Tuesday that he is fighting "Marxists" and "lunatics" while his Democratic challenger Joe Biden accused him in Florida, another key electoral state, of having treated Americans as "expendable" during the Covid-19 pandemic.
With only 21 days until the November 3 election and badly down in the polls, Mr Trump fired every lurid exaggeration about the Democrats and every insult about Mr Biden’s mental state that he has in his arsenal.
At the event in Pennsylvania, Mr Trump said Mr Biden was "choking like a dog" during their televised debate, called him mentally "shot," and claimed the Democratic candidate was the pawn of communists.
"He is handing control to the socialists and Marxists and Leftwing extremists," Mr Trump told the large, raucous crowd in Johnstown. "He can’t stand up to the lunatics running his party."
Read more: US election polls tracker: Will Donald Trump or Joe Biden win 2020 presidency?
Proud citizens like you helped build this Country—and together, we are taking back our Country. We are returning power to YOU, the American People! #MAGA pic.twitter.com/rn69eJJAPV
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 14, 2020
Reprising the outsider image that he built for his surprise 2016 victory, billionaire developer Mr Trump told the crowd that he was combating a "selfish and corrupt political class" in Washington.
But even as he delighted the crowd with his greatest rhetorical hits, Mr Trump once more showed that despite his poor poll showing he has no intention of trying to reach across to Democrats in a deeply divided nation.
"This will end up being a large-scale version of Venezuela if they get in," he said, painting a nightmarish anti-immigrant vision of a country where Democrats give free hospital care to "illegal aliens" while "decimating Medicare and destroying your Social Security."
The coronavirus, which has claimed more than 215,000 lives in the US, was largely an afterthought, even if Mr Trump himself was hospitalised for three nights after testing positive at the start of October.
"We’re going to crush the virus very quickly. It’s happening already," Mr Trump said, despite a swathe of the US now reporting large increases in infections.
"Soon it’s going to be perfecto," he said.
Hours earlier, Mr Biden was in Florida holding one of the much smaller events typical of his low-key campaign, zooming in on Mr Trump’s handling of the pandemic.
Thank you, Florida! pic.twitter.com/liQYRmvY7J
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 14, 2020
Arguably even more important on election day than Pennsylvania, Florida is a battleground state that Mr Trump won in 2016 but where polls currently show Mr Biden ahead.
Mr Biden courted the key electoral demographic of elderly people, telling an event at a retirement centre in Pembroke Pines, north of Miami, that Mr Trump has "never been focused on you".
"His handling of this pandemic has been erratic, just like his presidency has been," he said.
Mr Biden recalled that Mr Trump once remarked that the virus — which has taken a particularly brutal toll among the elderly — "infects virtually nobody".
"You are expendable, you are forgettable, you are virtually nobody. That’s how he sees this," said Mr Biden, who, unlike Mr Trump, wore a face mask throughout his remarks.
Mr Trump was also in Florida on Monday night for his first rally since recovering from his bout with Covid-19. This week he will be heading to Iowa and North Carolina, then back to Florida and Georgia.
Iowa and Georgia were two states which Mr Trump won handily in 2016 but polls show tight races in both three weeks ahead of the election.
And a poll of likely Florida voters released on Tuesday by Florida Atlantic University (FAU) gave Mr Biden a 51 per cent to 47 per cent lead there.
"Joe Biden continues to be competing better for senior voters than Hillary Clinton did in 2016, and that could be the difference in Florida," said Kevin Wagner, a political science professor at FAU.
Forty-four per cent of those polled said Mr Trump’s handling of the coronavirus crisis was good or excellent while 50 per cent said it was poor or terrible.
Mr Trump has brushed aside the polls, calling them "fake."
Texas, meanwhile, became the latest state to start early voting, which has been taking place at a record pace so far in the states that allow it, according to Michael McDonald, a professor at the University of Florida who tracks early voting.
According to McDonald’s US Elections Project, voters have cast 11.86 million ballots so far in the states that report early voting.
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