Vice President Joseph R. Biden accused Republican nominee Donald Trump Monday of endangering U.S. troops in Iraq by claiming that President Obama was the founder of the Islamic State terrorist group.
“If my son were still in Iraq, and I say to all those who are there, the threat to their life has gone up a couple of clicks,” Mr. Biden said at a rally for Hillary Clinton in his hometown of Scranton, Pennsylvania. “Trump is already making our country less safe.”
Mr. Trump said last week that Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton should be considered the “co-founders” of the Islamic State. He later said he was being sarcastic to make a point that their policies allowed the group to flourish.
Mr. Biden noted that the leader of Hezbollah, a Shiite rival terrorist group, has repeated Mr. Trump’s claims about Mr. Obama. The vice president asked rhetorically, “Does he have any idea of the adverse consequences these outlandish comments have on our allies and our friends, and the physical safety of our troops?”
Mr. Biden also said Mr. Trump is too reckless to be entrusted with the nation’s nuclear codes as president because he lacks a fundamental understanding of foreign policy and the risks of proliferation.
“He is not qualified to know the code. He can’t be trusted,” Mr. Biden said.
SEE ALSO: Clinton, joined by Biden on trail, blasts Trump for failing to release tax returns
The vice president’s first campaign appearance with Mrs. Clinton, whom he once considered battling for the Democratic nomination, was meant to undermine Mr. Trump’s national security plans that the Republican outlined in Ohio on Monday afternoon. Mr. Biden also is hoping to pull white working-class voters away from Mr. Trump in Pennsylvania, a must-win state for the Republican that Mrs. Clinton currently leads by about 10 percentage points.
He also made an appeal to female voters. Gesturing to three young girls in the audience, he said Mrs. Clinton’s election as the first female president would serve as a powerful example for women and girls.
“She gets it,” he said of Mrs. Clinton. “What it will mean to them, what it means when it’s President Hillary Rodham Clinton. It will change their lives.”
But Mr. Biden used most of his speech to scare voters about the consequences of putting Mr. Trump in charge of the nation’s military. The vice president said he would have urged his late son, Beau, who served one year in the Army in Iraq, to avoid serving in the military if Mr. Trump were commander in chief.
“I must tell you, had Donald Trump been president, I would have thrown my body in front of him [Beau Biden]. No, I really mean it, to keep him from going if the judgment [to deploy] was based on Trump’s decision,” Mr. Biden said.
In some of the administration’s harshest criticism of the Republican nominee, Mr. Biden also slammed Mr. Trump for praising Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying Mr. Trump “would have loved Stalin.”
“Putin’s determined to crack NATO and crack the European alliance,” said Mr. Biden. “That is his overarching, overwhelming interest.”
The vice president is traveling to Europe this week to reassure NATO allies about the U.S. commitment to them, he said, “because they’re worried” about Mr. Trump’s rhetoric.
“This guy’s shame has no limits,” Mr. Biden said. “He’s even gone so far as to ask Putin and Russia to conduct cyberattacks against the United States of America. Even if he’s joking, which he’s not, what an outrageous thing to say.”
Mr. Trump last month suggested that Russian hackers should turn over to the media any of the 30,000-plus deleted emails from Mrs. Clinton’s private email server, if they were in possession of them. He said later he was being facetious.
At the rally in Scranton, Mrs. Clinton blasted Mr. Trump for failing to release his income tax returns, saying the Republican’s economic plan would give wealthy people like him tax breaks, “assuming he pays any taxes at all.”
“We really don’t know, since we haven’t seen his tax returns,” Mrs. Clinton said. She said Mr. Trump’s plan to eliminate the state tax would save his family $4 billion “if you believe he’s as wealthy as he claims.”
Mrs. Clinton released her tax returns Friday, showing that the Clintons pulled in $10.6 million in 2015. They made nearly $28 million the year before.
The Clintons paid $3.24 million in federal income taxes in 2015.
At Monday’s rally in Scranton, Mrs. Clinton said her rival’s economic plan “turned out to be worse than I ever imagined,” saying it would provide tax breaks “to help rich people pay for their nannies.”
She ridiculed Mr. Trump for claiming that some of his firms provide child care for employees, saying the truth is that some of his hotels and resorts offer child care services for guests only.
“If you work for his business, water the lawns, carry the bags … you get nothing,” she said.
Mrs. Clinton said, if elected, she wants Mr. Biden to carry on his work as the head of a “cancer moonshot” project to speed up a cure for cancer.
Mr. Biden said Mr. Trump doesn’t understand the middle class, referring to the Republican as “someone who inherits a million and makes $20 million — no, they’re not a bum, but they’re a mere success.”
“This guy doesn’t care about the middle class,” Mr. Biden said. “And I don’t even blame him in a sense because he doesn’t understand it. He doesn’t have a clue.”
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.