U.S Republicans went all out to defend President Donald Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and attacked his opponent, calling him ”Beijing Biden” during the first night of the Republican convention.
They accused the rival Democrats of being weak on crime, soft on China and likely to stifle economic growth if Joe Biden becomes president.
The 73-year-old president showed up in North Carolina for an unscheduled in-person speech to delegates of the Republican National Convention, despite the pandemic.
A video hailing Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, saying he took “decisive action to save lives” was played twice at the convention.
During Trump’s speech before the boisterous group, he claimed that the Democrats were attempting to steal the November election through mail-in ballots.
“They are using Covid to steal an election, they are using Covid to defraud our people, all of our people, of a free and fair election,” Trump said.
“The only way they can take this election away from us is if this is a rigged election.”
He squarely placed the blame for the coronavirus on the Chinese Communist Party, deflecting any blame from the White House for the more than 177,000 COVID-19 deaths in the US.
Trump’s son also threatened that a Biden victory would “stop our economic recovery cold,” and lead to more shutdowns. “Biden also wants to bring in more illegal immigrants to take jobs from American citizens,” he said.
dpa/NAN
