PHILADELPHIA (AP) – Leveling a blistering attack on Donald Trump, Vice President Joe Biden put on his rhetorical hat as “middle-class Joe” Wednesday and told Democratic delegates and millions of television viewers that the billionaire businessman “has no clue” about the needs of working-class people or what makes the nation great.
“He’s trying to tell us he cares about the middle class?” Biden said at the Democratic National Convention. “Give me a break. That’s a bunch of malarkey.”
The delegates ate it up, chanting “not a clue, not a clue” and jumping to their feet over and over, waving signs that read simply “Joe.”
It was a bittersweet moment for Biden in more ways than one. He took note of the loss of his son, Beau, to brain cancer a little more than a year ago. And left unspoken was the knowledge that Biden had long hoped for a very different kind of convention moment – one in which he claimed the nomination for himself.
Biden, 73, ran for president twice and spent months last year debating whether to challenge Hillary Clinton for the 2016 nomination before he opted out in October.