WASHINGTON (AP) – Warning of a potential surge in anti-Americanism, Vice President Joe Biden is tearing into Donald Trump’s views on foreign policy and urging the country not to follow the presumptive Republican nominee down a path of isolationism and bigotry.
Biden, in a speech Monday to the Center for New American Security, planned to deliver a point-by-point rebuttal of Trump’s ideas on immigration, terrorism and relations with Russia. In excerpts of his speech released in advance by the White House, Biden cautioned against policies he said would make the U.S. and its neighborhood poorer, less democratic and less secure.
“Wielding the politics of fear and intolerance, like proposals to ban Muslims from entering the United States or slandering entire religious communities as complicit in terrorism, calls into question America’s status as the greatest democracy in the history of the world,” Biden planned to say.
Biden’s speech to the Washington think tank was to form his most concerted and lengthy rebuke to date of Trump, and comes as Biden and President Barack Obama are increasingly inserting themselves into the election in an attempt to stop Trump. Earlier this month both Biden and Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton, and both Democrats are expected to start campaigning aggressively for her in the coming days.
Although Biden didn’t mention Trump by name in the excerpts of his speech, his intended target was clear. On Sunday, Trump went beyond his previous calls for temporarily banning Muslim immigration by suggesting the U.S. should consider profiling Muslims already in the U.S. The Republican has also called for reinstating waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods to try to prevent terrorist attacks.