President Trump on Sunday told a rally crowd that he would defeat Democrat challenger Joseph R. Biden despite the left-wing news media and Big Tech stacking the deck against him.
“The swamp is deep and it is vicious. These people are vicious. They don’t report the truth,” he said, pointing to TV news cameras and reporters at the rally in Manchester, New Hampshire.
The jab at the media was vintage Trump but it took on heightened urgency with major news outlets and social media giants Twitter and Facebook blacking out reports about Mr. Biden’s links to his son Hunter Biden’s shady business deals.
“So I’m not just running against Joe Biden. I’m running against the left-wing media, Silicon Valley — censors who want to manipulate and control the American people. It’s unbelievable,” he said. “And if you say anything bad about Biden, they block you, they take you down.”
Mr. Trump is trailing in most polls nationally and in battleground states with nine days until the election. He’s barnstorming across the county with multiple rallies each day, while Mr. Biden rarely ventures onto the campaign trail for in-person events.
Mr. Biden long denied any connection to his son’s lucrative business deals struck in countries where his father wielded influence as vice president in the Obama administration. New revelations, including documents and first-hand accounts from Hunter Biden’s former business partner, show Mr. Biden was not only involved but was a central figure in what looks like influence-peddling schemes.
Hunter Biden’s business deals include:
• He landed a $50,000 per month seat on the board of a Ukraine energy company in 2014 while his father was the point man for Obama White House policy in that graft-riddled country.
• He made a $1 billion deal for his business with a Chinese bank in 2013 that later expanded to $1.5 billion, inking the agreement after a trip with his vice president father to China aboard Air Force Two in 2013.
• He got a $3.5 million payment in 2014 from the oligarch widow of a former Moscow mayor, according to Treasure Department records uncovered by a Senate investigation.
“What the hell is going on? Terrible. And then the media refuses to write it,” Mr. Trump said at the rally. “We’ve got to win.”
Mr. Biden and his son have denied any wrongdoing. But the elder Mr. Biden has not directly addressed new allegations of his involvement in the deals.
The president has increasingly accused Mr. Biden of being a corrupt politician.
In Manchester, he pushed back harder against the common perception that Mr. Biden is a “nice guy” — an image the former vice president banks on to present himself as the candidate with superior character.
Mr. Biden’s character has been put to the test during the campaign on the rare occasions that reporters or voters asked him about Hunter Biden’s business deals. On those occasions, Mr. Biden has lashed out at the questioner.
“No. He’s not a nice guy. People that knew him in prime time [know] he was never a nice guy,” said Mr. Trump. “He’s a phony guy. But now he’s probably more agitated than ever before.”
• S.A. Miller can be reached at smiller@washingtontimes.com.
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