Philadelphia, US
Reuters
President Joe Biden told donors at a political fundraiser on Monday that former President Donald Trump is a threat to US democracy and said the Republican had pledged to be a dictator for a day if elected in 2024.
“He’s saying it out loud,” said Biden, a Democrat who is running for reelection.
Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump arrives to rally with supporters at a “commit to caucus” event at a Whiskey bar in Ankeny, Iowa, US, on 2nd December, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Carlos Barria/File photo
Biden has sought to use Trump’s words against him on a number of occasions as a way to boost his own political prospects, casting Trump as a threat to democracy.
“The other day he said he wants to be a dictator only on one day, wipe out the civil servants and a whole range of other things,” Biden told donors at a campaign event in Philadelphia. “He embraces political violence instead of rejecting it. We can’t let that happen.”
During a speech on Saturday, Trump repeated a statement he made during a Fox News town hall last week that he did not intend to become a dictator if he wins the presidency again except “on day one”.
“I said I want to be a dictator for one day,” Trump told the New York Young Republican Club annual gala. “And you know why I wanted to be a dictator? Because I want a wall, right? I want a wall and I want to drill, drill, drill.”
His comments were nearly identical to those he made in the Fox town hall and prompted chants of “Build the Wall” from the gala crowd.
When asked about Trump’s comments, White House spokesman Andrew Bates said Biden “has been working to protect American democracy and to unite people of all political views against these unprecedented threats” without mentioning Trump by name.
Trump, the Republican frontrunner headed for a likely election re-match with Biden in 2024, has frequently promised “retribution” against political opponents if he gains power again. He has also called for the “termination” of parts of the Constitution over his false claims that his loss to Biden in the 2020 election was due to massive voter fraud.
“And I want to say it is wrong to suspend the Constitution and abuse federal power to persecute critics and trample the First Amendment,” Bates added while speaking on Air Force One as Biden flew to Philadelphia.
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Meanwhile, Trump has maintained his dominant position in the 2024 Republican presidential nominating contest, drawing the support of more than half of the party’s voters, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll completed on Monday.
The poll found that 61 per cent of self-identified Republicans said they would vote for the former US President in the state-by-state nominating contest to pick a challenger to Democratic President Joe Biden.
None of his rivals were anywhere close. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley were each backed by 11 per cent of self-identified Republicans.
Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy stood at five per cent, while former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie got two per cent and eight per cent said they were undecided.
The first ballots of the 2024 US elections will be cast in Iowa’s Republican caucus on 15th January.
The poll found little evidence that Republican voters are swayed by the battery of federal and state criminal charges Trump faces.
Fewer than one-quarter of Republican respondents said they believed accusations that Trump solicited election fraud or solicited a mob of his supporters to attack the US Capitol on 6th January, 2021 – two of the central charges in a federal criminal case due to go to trial at the height of the state-by-state nominating contest.
The poll also found few signs that Republican voters opposed to Trump are rallying around one of his rivals. Haley’s position has improved since September, when a Reuters/Ipsos poll found her tied for fourth place at four per cent.
But she and the other candidates have only fallen farther behind Trump, who had the backing of 51 per cent of Republicans in that poll.
The online poll of 1,689 self-identified Republican was conducted between 5th and 11th Decemver. It has a credibility interval of plus or minus three percentage points.
