Jill Biden wasting no time after stepping up to the microphone at a restaurant in suburban Detroit.
“Some people have come to the Detroit area recently and thrown some insults, but from what I’ve seen it’s a vibrant, thriving city,” he said. It was a blow to the Republican Donald TrumpMOE he aimed one last dart In the most populous city in the critical battlefield of the Midwest.
The first lady returned to the campaign trail for the first time in months, but she was no longer pushing Democrats to support her husband, the president. Joe Biden. Instead, he is now putting his energy into promoting the vice president Kamala HarrisBiden accepted the presidency after withdrawing his re-election bid. On Tuesday, the first lady wrapped up a five-day swing across five battlefields.
While the race itself has changed, what remains unchanged for Jill Biden is her efforts to highlight her contrasts with Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, in hopes that Democrats will keep the former president out of the White House and help preserve her husband’s legacy.
It’s one reason why he reminded about 150 people at a Harris campaign event at a restaurant in Clawson, Michigan, about 20 miles north of Detroit, that the former president insulted Detroit days earlier by calling it a “mess.” giving a speech there.
The first lady uses her campaign speeches to validate Harris
Before taking a few digs at Trump, the first lady spends most of her speech pumping up Harris, even recounting that they’ve “bonded” on many things over the past four years.
“One was how we lost our mothers to cancer long before we both needed them,” Biden says.
In his campaign speech, retooled to focus on the vice president, he says Harris’ background has helped make him a “tough, compassionate and decisive leader.” Harris cites her high school experience helping a friend who was being molested by her stepfather and her career as a district attorney and California attorney general.
He promotes Harris’ plans lowering food and housing costs going after “greedy” corporations, as well as a proposal to give $25,000 in aid to people trying to buy their first home.
Then Biden goes on to be “who’s in the women’s game in this election,” recalling how “deaf” and “devastated” he was in 2022 when three of Trump’s nominees to the US Supreme Court helped overturn a woman. constitutional right to abortion.
Harris has been the administration’s point person on the abortion and reproductive rights issue for the past two years.
“No one should have to give up their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree that the government shouldn’t tell women what to do,” Biden said, echoing the vice president. “As president, Kamala Harris will proudly sign a national law to restore reproductive freedom to all women in every state across our country.”
“As president, Kamala Harris will fight for you,” says Jill Biden.
Biden turns a break from his teaching schedule into a swing-state blitz
A break in the fall schedule at Northern Virginia Community College, where the first lady teaches English and writing twice a week allowed him to get back on track for the first time since the president announced in July that he was abandoning the race and endorsing Harris.
He gave speeches and met with small groups of campaign volunteers — some of whom brought cookies — as he toured battlegrounds in Arizona, Nevada, Michigan and Wisconsin during a five-day blitz that ended Tuesday in Pennsylvania.
In a suburb of Philadelphia, he joined volunteers making calls to a phone bank in West Chester and spoke at an event at Montgomery County Community College in another suburb of Blue Bell.
The first lady will be out again in what remains a neck-and-neck contest between Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, in recent weeks.
The first lady takes on Trump
“I hate to even say it,” Biden told an audience gathered inside a small Democratic campaign office in Madison, Wisconsin, as he mentioned the former president’s name.
“Donald Trump wakes up every morning thinking about one person and one person only. MOE?” he asked. “Him!” shouted the audience.
The first lady said a second Trump presidency would “bring more chaos, more greed, more division. He wants to lower taxes on rich guys like him at the expense of everyone else.”
“And this is important, the next president will probably choose new Supreme Court justices. And our children and our grandchildren will have to live with the consequences,” he added.
The first lady encourages followers to vote early.
“As you know, this election is going to be so close, every vote counts,” he told Pennsylvania phone bank volunteers before sitting down to make a few calls.
After speaking at Montgomery County Community College, he met the president in Philadelphia, where he was also on a new mission to promote Harris.
“Kamala Harris has been a great vice president. He’ll be a great president, too,” Biden said at a Democratic Party dinner.
