Politics

Biden, Trump vie for vote in Georgia rallies

Washington, Mar 9 (EFE).- With the nominations of their parties practically guaranteed, United States President Joe Biden and his rival Donald Trump intensified their campaigns Saturday in the decisive state of Georgia, where each held separate rallies with mutual attacks.

The rallies, which took place at the same time and about 100 kilometers apart, represent a starting point for the next eight months of the campaign to secure swing states such as Georgia, where Biden won in 2020 by just 11,779 votes. Trump faces a legal battle in the state for his efforts to overturn the election results.

At the historic Pullman Yards center in Atlanta, Biden cast his mind back to the last election, in which he achieved the first victory in Georgia for a Democratic presidential candidate since Bill Clinton in 1992. He encouraged his voters to make a difference again in November to continue with their agenda and defend the right to vote and fight to turn the right to abortion into law.

The president spoke of his achievements in these three years and used his speech to attack former President Donald Trump and warn of the scenario he says awaits the country.

“When he says he wants to be a dictator, I believe him,” Biden said of the Republican. “Our freedoms are literally on the ballot this November.”

On the other side, at the Forum River Center in Rome, a city southwest of Atlanta, Trump attacked his opponent.

“What Joe Biden has done on our border is a crime against humanity and the people of this nation for which he will never be forgiven,” he said.

The Republican again made immigration part of the central theme of his speech and again blamed Biden for the death of University of Georgia student Laken Hope Riley, allegedly murdered by an undocumented Venezuelan.

He said Biden had no remorse and no intention of amending his immigration policy, and met the late student’s parents before beginning his speech.

The woman’s death has been capitalized on by Republicans to blame the Biden administration for the wave of undocumented immigrants that has arrived across the country’s southern border.

Trump also criticized Biden for apologizing for using the term illegal when referring to the undocumented suspect when he discussed the case at the State of the Union Address last Thursday.

“Now he was illegal, and I say he was an illegal alien. He was an illegal immigrant. He was an illegal migrant, and he shouldn’t have been in our country, and he never would have been under the Trump policy,” said the Republican to applause.

He also promised to implement the largest deportation scheme in history and added that if he is re-elected he would “use every tool at his disposal” to get rid of “the monsters that Joe Biden unleashed.”

The president offered his condolences to Riley’s family and asked congress to approve a border security bill that did not advance in the Senate last month due to Republican opposition.

Each of the candidates differentiated their vision of the country Saturday and even that of their voters to establish themselves in Georgia, a Republican bastion in the past and where both campaigns are pouring great efforts to win.

First lady Jill Biden recently visited the state and introduced her husband Saturday. Republicans, led by Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, have tried to divert attention from the legal battle Trump faces for election interference in the state, and for which he was profiled by the police.

Georgia celebrates its primaries Tuesday, along with Hawaii, Mississippi and the state of Washington, results that will swing in favor of both Biden and Trump to be nominated as candidates for the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, respectively. EFE

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